''Truncatella caribaeensis'' is a
species of a very small somewhat
amphibious
Amphibious means able to use either land or water. In particular it may refer to:
Animals
* Amphibian, a vertebrate animal of the class Amphibia (many of which live on land and breed in water)
* Amphibious caterpillar
* Amphibious fish, a fish ...
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 ...
with a
gill and an
operculum, a semi-
terrestrial 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 or
micromollusk
A micromollusk is a shelled mollusk which is extremely small, even at full adult size. The word is usually, but not exclusively, applied to marine mollusks, although in addition, numerous species of land snails and freshwater mollusks also ...
in the
family Truncatellidae
Truncatellidae, common name the "looping snails", is a family of small amphibious snails, with gills and an operculum, semi-marine gastropod mollusks or micromollusks.
Shell description
This family of snails have small shells which lose th ...
, the truncatella snails or looping snails. These tiny snails live in damp habitat (under rotting vegetation) that is very close to the edge of the sea; they can tolerate being washed with saltwater during especially high tides. These snails are sometimes listed as land snails and at other times they are listed as marine snails.
Distribution
The distribution of ''Truncatella caribaeensis'' includes: Aruba, Belize, Bonaire, Caribbean Sea, Cayman Islands, Colombia, Cuba, Curaçao, Gulf of Mexico, Hispaniola, Jamaica, Lesser Antilles, Mexico, Puerto Rico and San Andres.
Description
The maximum recorded
shell length is 9 mm.
[Welch J. J. (2010). "The "Island Rule" and Deep-Sea Gastropods: Re-Examining the Evidence". '' PLoS ONE'' 5(1): e8776. .]
Habitat
Minimum recorded depth is 0 m.
Maximum recorded depth is 1.5 m.
References
Truncatellidae
Gastropods described in 1842
Gastropods of the Dutch Caribbean
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