''Ovachlamys fulgens'' 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

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

Helicarionidae Helicarionidae is a family of air-breathing land snails or semi-slugs, terrestrial pulmonate gastropod mollusks in the superfamily Helicarionoidea. Distribution The distribution of Helicarionidae includes the eastern Palearctic, Malagasy, Ind ...

. ''Ovachlamys fulgens'' was originally discovered and described as ''Macrochlamys fulgens'' by the British malacologist

Gerard Pierre Laurent Kalshoven Gude Gerard Pierre Laurent Kalshoven Gude (1858 Amsterdam – 8 November 1924) Woodward B. B. (1925). " GERARD PIERRE LAURENT KALSHOVEN GUDE, F.Z.S., ETC. 1858–1924". ''Proceedings of the Malacological Society of London'' 16(5): 205-206. was a malaco ...

in 1900.

Distribution

The type locality for this species is

Ryukyu Islands The , also known as the or the , are a chain of Japanese islands that stretch southwest from Kyushu to Taiwan: the Ōsumi, Tokara, Amami, Okinawa, and Sakishima Islands (further divided into the Miyako and Yaeyama Islands), with Yonaguni ...

(Loo-Choo Islands). The type specimens are stored in the

Florida Museum of Natural History The Florida Museum of Natural History (FLMNH) is Florida's official state-sponsored and chartered natural-history museum. Its main facilities are located at 3215 Hull Road on the campus of the University of Florida in Gainesville. The main pub ...

. The snail is thought to be originally from the

. ''Ovachlamys fulgens'' has spread to various countries, most probably accidentally introduced with the

orchid Orchids are plants that belong to the family Orchidaceae (), a diverse and widespread group of flowering plants with blooms that are often colourful and fragrant. Along with the Asteraceae, they are one of the two largest families of flowering ...

trade. Non-indigenous distribution of ''Ovachlamys fulgens'' include: Americas: *

Costa Rica Costa Rica (, ; ; literally "Rich Coast"), officially the Republic of Costa Rica ( es, República de Costa Rica), is a country in the Central American region of North America, bordered by Nicaragua to the north, the Caribbean Sea to the no ...

Barrientos Z. (24 September 1999)
"''Ovachlamys fulgens'' (Gude, 1900)"
.

Instituto Nacional de Biodiversidad The Instituto Nacional de Biodiversidad (INBio) is the national institute for biodiversity and conservation in Costa Rica. Created at the end of the 1980s, and despite having national status, it is a privately run institution that works closely w ...

(INBio), accessed 27 August 2010. The most frequent non-indigenous distribution has this species in Costa Rica. *

USA The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...

: **

Miami-Dade County, Florida Miami-Dade County is a County (United States), county located in the southeastern part of the U.S. state of Florida. The county had a population of 2,701,767 as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, making it the most populous county in ...

- it has been reported since 2003, but its wide distribution in the areas sampled strongly indicates that it has been established in southern Florida for some time. **

Broward County, Florida Broward County ( , ) is a county in the southeastern part of Florida, located in the Miami metropolitan area. It is Florida's second-most populous county after Miami-Dade County and the 17th-most populous in the United States, with over 1.94 m ...

- it has been reported since 2003. *

Trinidad Trinidad is the larger and more populous of the two major islands of Trinidad and Tobago. The island lies off the northeastern coast of Venezuela and sits on the continental shelf of South America. It is often referred to as the southernmos ...

and Tobago * Colombia *

Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...

- since 2015 Pacific: *

Hawaii Hawaii ( ; haw, Hawaii or ) is a state in the Western United States, located in the Pacific Ocean about from the U.S. mainland. It is the only U.S. state outside North America, the only state that is an archipelago, and the only stat ...

Several Southeast Asian countries: *

Thailand Thailand ( ), historically known as Siam () and officially the Kingdom of Thailand, is a country in Southeast Asia, located at the centre of the Indochinese Peninsula, spanning , with a population of almost 70 million. The country is bo ...

* Singapore This species is already established in the US, and is considered to represent a potentially serious threat as a pest, an

invasive species An invasive species otherwise known as an alien is an introduced organism that becomes overpopulated and harms its new environment. Although most introduced species are neutral or beneficial with respect to other species, invasive species ad ...

which could negatively affect agriculture, natural ecosystems, human health or commerce. Therefore, it has been suggested that this species be given top national

quarantine A quarantine is a restriction on the movement of people, animals and goods which is intended to prevent the spread of disease or pests. It is often used in connection to disease and illness, preventing the movement of those who may have been ...

significance in the USA.Cowie R. H., Dillon R. T., Robinson D. G. & Smith J. W. (2009). "Alien non-marine snails and slugs of priority quarantine importance in the United States: A preliminary risk assessment". ''American Malacological Bulletin'' 27: 113-132
PDF
.

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 ...

of this species is perforate,

trochoid In geometry, a trochoid () is a roulette curve formed by a circle rolling along a line. It is the curve traced out by a point fixed to a circle (where the point may be on, inside, or outside the circle) as it rolls along a straight line. If the ...

, thin, shining, pellucid and dark corneous. 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 depressed. The

apex The apex is the highest point of something. The word may also refer to: Arts and media Fictional entities * Apex (comics), a teenaged super villainess in the Marvel Universe * Ape-X, a super-intelligent ape in the Squadron Supreme universe *Apex ...

is obtuse. Sutures are linear and margined. The shell has four

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 ...

, that are increasing rather suddenly. 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 convex and a little inflated and it is twice as wide as the penultimate whorl. Whorls are finely striated, decussated by microscopic spiral lines. The last whorl is not descending and it is slightly excavated in the umbilical region. 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 slightly oblique, lunate. The peristome is thin, straight, acute. Margins of the aperture are distant, sub-parallel, the columellar margin a little reflected and nearly covering the very narrow umbilical perforation. The width of the shell is 6–7 mm. The height of the shell is 4,5 mm. These snails are sometimes called "jumping snails" because the tail is modified with a caudal horn and the posterior part of the foot acts as a catapult to push off from contiguous substrates allowing the snail to suddenly move several inches.

Ecology

The habitats of ''Ovachlamys fulgens'' include

pastures Pasture (from the Latin ''pastus'', past participle of ''pascere'', "to feed") is land used for grazing. Pasture lands in the narrow sense are enclosed tracts of farmland, grazed by domesticated livestock, such as horses, cattle, sheep, or swine ...

and crop fields with enough moisture and with deep leaf litter cover. For example, habitats with ''

Yucca guatemalensis ''Yucca gigantea'' ( syn. ''Yucca elephantipes'') is a species of flowering plant in the asparagus family, native to Mexico and Central America. Growing up to in height, it is an evergreen shrub which is widely cultivated as an ornamental garde ...

'' provide good conditions for this species. The snails are mostly found in soil litter and on plants up to 8 feet in height in areas of secondary growth and tree plantations. Ideal collecting time is after rainfall. This species is considered an important

pest. It is

phytophagous 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 mouthpar ...

and is reported to attack a wide variety of horticultural plants, but the snails are mostly found among soil litter and become dormant during dry periods. It has been found on

avocado The avocado (''Persea americana'') is a medium-sized, evergreen tree in the laurel family (Lauraceae). It is native to the Americas and was first domesticated by Mesoamerican tribes more than 5,000 years ago. Then as now it was prized for i ...

mango A mango is an edible stone fruit produced by the tropical tree ''Mangifera indica''. It is believed to have originated in the region between northwestern Myanmar, Bangladesh, and northeastern India. ''M. indica'' has been cultivated in South a ...

, ''

Heliconia ''Heliconia'', derived from the Greek word (), is a genus of flowering plants in the monotypic family Heliconiaceae. Most of the ca 194 known species are native to the tropical Americas, but a few are indigenous to certain islands of the we ...

'' and '' Dracaena''. Leaves of the avocado can be also used to raise juveniles in the laboratory. Little scientific data has been gathered on the biology of this species. Individuals of''Ovachlamys fulgens'' can lay eggs at the age of 42 days and are considered mature when their shell width reaches 5.12 mm. There is no need for the snails to mate in order to lay eggs and for successful reproduction. Eggs are laid in clutches of three in soil or

leaf litter Plant litter (also leaf litter, tree litter, soil litter, litterfall or duff) is dead plant material (such as leaves, bark, needles, twigs, and cladodes) that have fallen to the ground. This detritus or dead organic material and its constituent ...

where they absorb more water from the environment. The lifespan of ''Ovachlamys fulgens'' is 9 months in the laboratory.Barrientos Z. (1998). "Life history of the terrestrial snail ''Ovachlamys fulgens'' (Stylommatophora: Helicarionidae) under laboratory conditions". '' Revista de Biología Tropical'' 46(2): 369-384
PDF

HTM in the Google chache

Parasites

Parasites of ''Ovachlamys fulgens'' includes ''

Angiostrongylus cantonensis ''Angiostrongylus cantonensis'' is a parasitic nematode (roundworm) that causes angiostrongyliasis, the most common cause of eosinophilic meningitis in Southeast Asia and the Pacific Basin. The nematode commonly resides in the pulmonary arteries ...

''.

References

This article incorporates public domain text from the reference and a public domain

work of the United States Government A work of the United States government, is defined by the United States copyright law, as "a work prepared by an officer or employee of the United States Government as part of that person's official duties." "A 'work of the United States Governmen ...

from references.

Stange L. A. (created September 2004, updated March 2006)
"Snails and Slugs of Regulatory Significance to Florida"
. Division of Plant Industry,

Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services The Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services (FDACS) is an executive department of the government of Florida. The Commissioner of Agriculture (directly elected by voters statewide for a four-year term, and a member of the Florida ...

. accessed 27 August 2010.

Robinson D. G. (16 June 2003). "Invasive Mollusk Survey of Miami-Dade and Broward Counties, Florida June 2003". Division of Plant Industry,

PDF

External links

''Ovachlamys fulgens''
on the UF / IFAS Featured Creatures Web site {{DEFAULTSORT:Ovachlamys Fulgens Helicarionidae Gastropods described in 1900