''Ladislavella utahensis'', common name the thickshell pondsnail, 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 air-breathing

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 ...

, an aquatic

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 ...

mollusc 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 esti ...

in the family

Lymnaeidae Lymnaeidae, common name the pond snails, is a taxonomic family of small to large air-breathing freshwater snails, aquatic pulmonate gastropod mollusks, that belong to the clade Hygrophila. Lymnaeidae is the only family within the superfamily ...

, the pond snails. This species is

endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also found elsew ...

Utah Lake Utah Lake is a shallow freshwater lake in the center of Utah County, Utah, United States. It lies in Utah Valley, surrounded by the Provo-Orem metropolitan area. The lake's only river outlet, the Jordan River, is a tributary of the Great Salt La ...

in the United States. The last living snails were found in the early 1930s.

Shell description

The

shell Shell may refer to: Architecture and design * Shell (structure), a thin structure ** Concrete shell, a thin shell of concrete, usually with no interior columns or exterior buttresses ** Thin-shell structure Science Biology * Seashell, a hard ou ...

is globose, somewhat umbilicated and irregularly costate. The color of the shell is light horn and nearly pellucid. The

spire A spire is a tall, slender, pointed structure on top of a roof of a building or tower, especially at the summit of church steeples. A spire may have a square, circular, or polygonal plan, with a roughly conical or pyramidal shape. Spires are ...

is rather small and conical. The shell has from 4 to 4 and half convex

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 ...

, that are somewhat flattened above, giving rather a shouldered appearance to the whorls. Whorls are rapidly increasing in size. The

last whorl The body whorl is part of the morphology of the shell in those gastropod mollusks that possess a coiled shell. The term is also sometimes used in a similar way to describe the shell of a cephalopod mollusk. In gastropods In gastropods, the b ...

is inflated, with numerous rather marked transverse costae and minutely wrinkled. The suture is somewhat deep, regularly impressed. The

aperture In optics, an aperture is a hole or an opening through which light travels. More specifically, the aperture and focal length of an optical system determine the cone angle of a bundle of rays that come to a focus in the image plane. An opt ...

is elongately ovate, effuse, approaching patulous and pearly white within. The outer lip is simple and its margin is connected by a slight calcareous deposit. The

columella Lucius Junius Moderatus Columella (; Arabic: , 4 – ) was a prominent writer on agriculture in the Roman Empire. His ' in twelve volumes has been completely preserved and forms an important source on Roman agriculture, together with the wo ...

is somewhat twisted, but straight in front. The average width of the shell of ''Ladislavella utahensis'' is 7.10 mm. The average height of the shell is 13.40 mm. The maximum width of the shell is 8.88 mm. The height of the shell is 16.82 mm. The width of the aperture is 5.90 mm. The height of the apeture is 9.00 mm. File:Stagnicola utahensis shell 2.jpg, Drawing of apical view of the shell File:Stagnicola utahensis shell 3.jpg, Drawing of lateral view of the shell

Anatomy

The anatomy of the

radula The radula (, ; plural radulae or radulas) is an anatomical structure used by molluscs for feeding, sometimes compared to a tongue. It is a minutely toothed, chitinous ribbon, which is typically used for scraping or cutting food before the food ...

was not published. (cf.)

Distribution

This species is

Utah Utah ( , ) is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. Utah is a landlocked U.S. state bordered to its east by Colorado, to its northeast by Wyoming, to its north by Idaho, to its south by Arizona, and to it ...

and it is known only from

. The type locality is

Lake Utah Utah Lake is a shallow freshwater lake in the center of Utah County, Utah, United States. It lies in Utah Valley, surrounded by the Provo-Orem metropolitan area. The lake's only river outlet, the Jordan River, is a tributary of the Great Salt La ...

Lehi, Utah Lehi ( ) is a city in Utah County, Utah, United States. It is named after Lehi, a prophet in the Book of Mormon. The population was 75,907 at the 2020 census, up from 47,407 in 2010. The rapid growth in Lehi is due, in part, to the rapid develo ...

. The species was already considered "rare" in Utah Lake in the 1880s. The most recent living examples were found in 1933.

Ecology

This species was associated with abundant individuals of the snails ''

Valvata utahensis The Utah roundmouth snail, also known as the Utah valvata or desert valvata, scientific name ''Valvata utahensis'', is a species of freshwater snail with a gill and an operculum, an aquatic gastropod mollusc in the family Valvatidae, the valve s ...

'' and ''

Fluminicola fusca ''Fluminicola'' may refer to: * ''Fluminicola'' (gastropod), a genus of minute freshwater snails in the family Lithoglyphidae * ''Fluminicola'' (fungus), a genus of fungi in the family Papulosaceae {{Genus disambiguation ...

'' and with the bivalve ''

Sphaerium dentatum ''Sphaerium'' is a genus of very small freshwater clams, aquatic bivalve molluscs in the family Sphaeriidae, known as the fingernail clams. The small clams in this genus are unusual in that many of them, such as ''Sphaerium corneum'', can climb ...

''.

References

This article incorporates public domain text from reference Call R. E. (1886). "On certain recent, quaternary, and new fresh-water Mollusca". ''

Proceeding Davenport Academy of Natural Sciences In academia and librarianship, conference proceedings is a collection of academic papers published in the context of an academic conference or workshop. Conference proceedings typically contain the contributions made by researchers at the conferen ...

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5page 5plate I
figure 7-9. {{Taxonbar, from=Q123194083, from2=Q3074461 Lymnaeidae Molluscs of North America Critically endangered fauna of North America Endemic fauna of Utah Gastropods described in 1884 Taxonomy articles created by Polbot