''Parafossarulus manchouricus'' is a species of

freshwater snail Freshwater snails are gastropod mollusks which live in fresh water. There are many different families. They are found throughout the world in various habitats, ranging from ephemeral pools to the largest lakes, and from small seeps and springs ...

with gills and an operculum, an aquatic prosobranch

gastropod The gastropods (), commonly known as snails and slugs, belong to a large taxonomic class of invertebrates within the phylum Mollusca called Gastropoda (). This class comprises snails and slugs from saltwater, from freshwater, and from land. T ...

mollusk in the family

Bithyniidae Bithyniidae is a family of small freshwater snails with an operculum, aquatic gastropod molluscs in the clade Littorinimorpha.Bouchet, P.; Gofas, S. (2015). Bithyniidae Gray, 1857. In: MolluscaBase (2015). Accessed through: World Register of Ma ...

. This species is medically important as a host for the liver fluke ''

Clonorchis sinensis ''Clonorchis sinensis'', the Chinese liver fluke, is a liver fluke belonging to the class Trematoda, phylum Platyhelminthes. It infects fish-eating mammals, including humans. In humans, it infects the common bile duct and gall bladder, feeding on ...

'' in East Asia.

Subspecies

* ''Parafossarulus manchouricus japonicus'' (

Pilsbry Henry Augustus Pilsbry (7 December 1862 – 26 October 1957) was an American biologist, malacologist and carcinologist, among other areas of study. He was a dominant presence in many fields of invertebrate taxonomy for the better part of a centu ...

, 1901)

Description

The shell has 5.5

whorls A whorl ( or ) is an individual circle, oval, volution or equivalent in a whorled pattern, which consists of a spiral or multiple concentric objects (including circles, ovals and arcs). Whorls in nature File:Photograph and axial plane floral d ...

. The width of the shell is 6 mm. The height of the shell is 10 mm. The haploid chromosome number of ''Parafossarulus manchouricus'' is n=17.Amany A. Tohamy & Shaimaa M. Mohamed (2006). "Chromosomal studies on two Egyptian freshwater snails, ''Cleopatra'' and ''Bithynia'' (Mollusca-Prosobranchiata)". '' Arab J. Biotech.'' 9(1): 17-26
PDF
.

Distribution

This species occurs in: Russia (

Amur River The Amur (russian: река́ Аму́р, ), or Heilong Jiang (, "Black Dragon River", ), is the world's List of longest rivers, tenth longest river, forming the border between the Russian Far East and Northeast China, Northeastern China (Inne ...

basin),Kantor Yu I., Vinarski M. V., Schileyko A. A. & Sysoev A. V. (published online on March 2, 2010). "Catalogue of the continental mollusks of Russia and adjacent territories"
Version 2.3.1.
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Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

(Honshū, Kyushu and Shikoku), Korea, Taiwan and

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

. The type locality is the Amur River and other rivers in the southern Siberia ("le fleuve Amour et divers cours d'eau de la Sibérie méridionale").

Habitat

''Parafossarulus manchouricus'' lives in shallow ponds and in irrigation channels.

Parasites

This species is a first intermediate host for ''

''.''Clonorchis sinensis''
. Web Atlas of Medical Pathology, accessed 1 April 2009.

Subspecies

Description

Distribution

Habitat

Parasites

References

Further reading