''Zonitoides nitidus'' (sometimes ''Zonitoides nitida'') 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, air-breathing land snail, 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 ...

mollusc 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). MolluscaB ...

. ''Zonitoides nitidus'' is the

type species In zoological nomenclature, a type species (''species typica'') is the species name with which the name of a genus or subgenus is considered to be permanently taxonomically associated, i.e., the species that contains the biological type specimen ...

of the genus '' Zonitoides''.

Distribution

The distribution of ''Zonitoides nitidus'' includes the

Holarctic The Holarctic realm is a biogeographic realm that comprises the majority of habitats found throughout the continents in the Northern Hemisphere. It corresponds to the floristic Boreal Kingdom. It includes both the Nearctic zoogeographical reg ...

zone. It is found almost all over

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...

except the southernmost regions: *

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 ...

- least concern (LC) *

Netherlands ) , anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau") , image_map = , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands , established_title = Before independence , established_date = Spanish Netherl ...

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...

Sverdlovsk oblast Sverdlovsk Oblast ( rus, Свердловская область, Sverdlovskaya oblast) is a federal subject (an oblast) of Russia located in the Ural Federal District. Its administrative center is the city of Yekaterinburg, formerly known as S ...

/ref> *

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. *

Slovakia Slovakia (; sk, Slovensko ), officially the Slovak Republic ( sk, Slovenská republika, links=no ), is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is bordered by Poland to the north, Ukraine to the east, Hungary to the south, Austria to the s ...

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 ...

- north British highland zones and not in north Scotland. In some regions in Britain the species has declined due to

drainage Drainage is the natural or artificial removal of a surface's water and sub-surface water from an area with excess of water. The internal drainage of most agricultural soils is good enough to prevent severe waterlogging (anaerobic conditio ...

. *

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 ...

* Hebrides *

Orkney Orkney (; sco, Orkney; on, Orkneyjar; nrn, Orknøjar), also known as the Orkney Islands, is an archipelago in the Northern Isles of Scotland, situated off the north coast of the island of Great Britain. Orkney is 10 miles (16 km) north ...

Shetland Shetland, also called the Shetland Islands and formerly Zetland, is a subarctic archipelago in Scotland lying between Orkney, the Faroe Islands and Norway. It is the northernmost region of the United Kingdom. The islands lie about to the no ...

* rare in northern

Greece Greece,, or , romanized: ', officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the southern tip of the Balkans, and is located at the crossroads of Europe, Asia, and Africa. Greece shares land borders with ...

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

The non-indigenous distribution of this species includes: * introduced to

Menorca Menorca or Minorca (from la, Insula Minor, , smaller island, later ''Minorica'') is one of the Balearic Islands located in the Mediterranean Sea belonging to Spain. Its name derives from its size, contrasting it with nearby Majorca. Its capi ...

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 o ...

is reddish brown. The umbilicus is large (almost 25% of shell diameter). The shell is with radial growth lines. The width of the shell is 6–7 mm. The height of the shell is 3.5-4.0 mm. The animal is black with a characteristic orange dash: the ( mantle gland is visible under the shell's

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 ...

). Juveniles are whitish grey with light brown translucent shells.

Ecology

''Zonitoides nitidus'' occurs in wet meadows and river woods, usually near water bodies, swamps and swampy forests, in the zone of emergent vegetation. Man-made habitats such as pools in old quarries are sometimes colonized after a few years. In Switzerland it is found up to 2100m of altitude. ''Zonitoides nitidus'' is

herbivorous A herbivore is an animal anatomically and physiologically adapted to eating plant material, for example foliage or marine algae, for the main component of its diet. As a result of their plant diet, herbivorous animals typically have mouthpart ...

. These snails feed on disintegrating leaves, mushrooms, roots and fruit. They do not eat dry leaves. Humid leaves are preferred. When consuming soft food such as mushrooms or soft fruits, ''Zonitoides nitidus'' penetrates perpendicularly inside, producing characteristic holes; the entire animal including its shell can penetrate inside the fruit. In Germany up to three clutches of 2-9 eggs per individual are laid in all seasons, with some days or weeks spacing between egg-laying. Egg diameter is 1.0-1.6 mm. Eggs are laid loose into the soil. Juveniles have 1.5

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 ...

(diameter 1-1.2 mm) after hatching. They start feeding on disintegrating plant remains in the soil. After 3 months the shell diameter reaches up to 3 mm under favourable conditions, after 10 months 6 mm, and full size after slightly more than one year. Maximum age is 18 months under laboratory conditions. Parasites of ''Zonitoides nitidus'' include: * '' Elaphostrongylus'' spp.Olsson I.-M., Stéen M. & Mann H. (1993). "Gastropod hosts of ''Elaphostrongylus'' spp. (Protostrongylidae, Nematoda)". '' Rangifer'' 13(1): 53-55
PDF
* ''

Parelaphostrongylus tenuis ''Parelaphostrongylus tenuis'' (also known as meningeal worm or brainworm) is a neurotropic nematode parasite common to white-tailed deer, ''Odocoileus virginianus'', which causes damage to the central nervous system. Moose (''Alces alces'') ...

Michigan Department of Natural Resources and Environment The Michigan Department of Natural Resources (DNR) is the agency of the state of Michigan charged with maintaining natural resources such as state parks, state forests, and recreation areas. It is governed by a director appointed by the Governor a ...

"Brainworm"
accessed 14 December 2010.

References

This article incorporates public domain text from the reference."Species summary for ''Zonitoides nitidus''"

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 ...

, last modified 29 August 2010, accessed 3 September 2010.

External links

*
image of ''Zonitoides nitidus''
{{Taxonbar, from=Q1532576 Gastrodontidae Gastropods described in 1774 Taxa named by Otto Friedrich Müller