''Aegopinella nitidula'' (previously known as ''Retinella nitidula'') is a

species In biology, a species is the basic unit of classification and a taxonomic rank of an organism, as well as a unit of biodiversity. A species is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate s ...

of small

land snail A land snail is any of the numerous species of snail that live on land, as opposed to the sea snails and freshwater snails. ''Land snail'' is the common name for terrestrial gastropod mollusks that have shells (those without shells are known as ...

, a

terrestrial Terrestrial refers to things related to land or the planet Earth. Terrestrial may also refer to: * Terrestrial animal, an animal that lives on land opposed to living in water, or sometimes an animal that lives on or near the ground, as opposed to ...

pulmonate Pulmonata or pulmonates, is an informal group (previously an order, and before that a subclass) of snails and slugs characterized by the ability to breathe air, by virtue of having a pallial lung instead of a gill, or gills. The group includ ...

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 Mollusca is the second-largest phylum of invertebrate animals after the Arthropoda, the members of which are known as molluscs or mollusks (). Around 85,000 extant species of molluscs are recognized. The number of fossil species is e ...

in the family

Gastrodontidae Gastrodontidae is a family of air-breathing land snails, terrestrial pulmonate gastropod mollusks in the superfamily Gastrodontoidea (according to the taxonomy of the Gastropoda by Bouchet & Rocroi, 2005). MolluscaBase eds. (2020). MolluscaBase ...

, the glass snails. Forsyth et al. (2001) reviews its identification and ecology.

Description

For terms see

gastropod shell The gastropod shell is part of the body of a Gastropoda, gastropod or snail, a kind of mollusc. The shell is an exoskeleton, which protects from predators, mechanical damage, and dehydration, but also serves for muscle attachment and calcium s ...

The shell is amber reddish in colour, rarely whitish. It is milky white near the umbilicus. The shell is finely striated with spiral lines producing a fine reticular pattern (less prominent than in '' A. pura''). The apex is strongly convex with 3.5-4.5 convex and regularly increasing whorls. The last whorl is not inflated near the aperture and not descending. The aperture is slightly oblique and the umbilicus is wide. The animal is bluish grey with a lighter sole and bluish black upper tentacles.

Distribution

This species occurs in these countries amongst others: *

Czech Republic The Czech Republic, or simply Czechia, is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Historically known as Bohemia, it is bordered by Austria to the south, Germany to the west, Poland to the northeast, and Slovakia to the southeast. The ...

Ukraine Ukraine ( uk, Україна, Ukraïna, ) is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the second-largest European country after Russia, which it borders to the east and northeast. Ukraine covers approximately . Prior to the ongoing Russian inv ...

Balashov I. & Gural-Sverlova N. 2012. An annotated checklist of the terrestrial molluscs of Ukraine. ''Journal of Conchology''. 41 (1): 91-109. *

Great Britain Great Britain is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean off the northwest coast of continental Europe. With an area of , it is the largest of the British Isles, the largest European island and the ninth-largest island in the world. It is ...

Ireland Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...

* Canada (Vancouver; introduced)Forsyth, R.G., Hutchinson, J.M.C. & Reise, H. 2001
''Aegopinella nitidula'' (Draparnaud, 1805) (Gastropoda: Zonitidae) in British Columbia—first confirmed North American record.
''American Malacological Bulletin'' 16: 65–69.

Habitat

''Aegiponella nitidula'' prefers moderately humid to humid sites in forests, but it can occur in a wide range of habitats, for example hedges, rocks and spring areas.Welter-Schultes, F.W. 2012. ''European non-marine molluscs, a guide for species identification: Bestimmungsbuch für europäische Land- und Süsswassermollusken.'' Planet Poster Editions: Göttingen.

References

External links

''Aegopinella nitidula''
at

Animalbase AnimalBase is a project brought to life in 2004 and is maintained by the University of Göttingen, Germany. The goal of the AnimalBase project is to digitize early zoological literature, provide copyright-free open access to zoological works, and pr ...

taxonomy,short description, distribution, biology,status (threats), images Gastrodontidae Gastropods described in 1805 {{Gastrodontidae-stub