Desmoulin's whorl snail | |
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Vertigo moulinsiana | |
Conservation status | |
Scientific classification | |
Kingdom: | Animalia |
Phylum: | Mollusca |
Class: | Gastropoda |
(unranked): | clade Heterobranchia clade Euthyneura clade Panpulmonata clade Eupulmonata clade Stylommatophora clade Orthurethra |
Superfamily: | Pupilloidea |
Family: | Vertiginidae |
Subfamily: | Vertigininae |
Tribe: | Vertiginini |
Genus: | Vertigo |
Subgenus: | Vertigo |
Species: | V. moulinsiana |
Binomial name | |
Vertigo moulinsiana (Dupuy, 1849)[2] |
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Synonyms | |
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Desmoulin's whorl snail, scientific name Vertigo moulinsiana, is a species of minute air-breathing land snail, a terrestrial pulmonate gastropod mollusc or micromollusc in the family Vertiginidae, the vertigo snails.
This species was named after the early 19th century French naturalist, Charles des Moulins.
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This species lives in marshes and swamps.
Desmoulin's whorl snail lives in calcareous wetlands, where there are tall sedges, saw-sedge (Cladium mariscus), reed-grass (Glyceria maxima) or the reed Phragmites australis.[3]
The distribution of this species is Atlantic (the part of the Palearctic area which is under the direct climatic influence of the Atlantic Ocean), and southern-European.[4]
This small snail occurs across Europe as far north as southern Sweden.[5]
Within Western Europe, only the populations in England (Great Britain) and Ireland are considered to be viable,[5] although further populations exist in the Czech Republic (critically endangered, occupying White Carpathians Biospehere Reserve, Kokořínsko Landscape Protected Area and Southern Moravia),[6][7][8] in Poland (critically endangered)[9] and elsewhere in Europe (for example: Netherlands,[10] France).[11] Its conservation status in the Czech Republic in 2004-2006 is favourable (FV) in the report for the European Commission in accordance with the Habitats Directive.[12] Its conservation status in Spain is endangered and it occurs in two localities only: near Estañá lake and near Lake of Banyoles.[13]
Distribution of other European countries include Belgium, Switzerland, Italy, Germany, Austria, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, Denmark, Norway, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Belarus, Ukraine, Russia, Georgia and Azerbaijan.[1] Its distribution also include Algeria and Morocco.[1]
This species is mentioned in Annex II of the European Union's Habitats Directive.[14]
The shell is dextral, minute, ovate, ventricose, obtuse at apex, smoothish, subperforate. Aperture is semiovate, 4-toothed: 1 tooth on the parietal wall, another on the columella, and two palatals, the lower one longer. The shell has 4 whorls, parted by a distinct suture, the last doubly larger than all the others together. Rather solid, glossy, subpellucid and of a uniform fulvous color.[15]
The shell of this species reaches about 3 mm tall. The shell is yellowish or brownish and translucent.[16]
In the United Kingdom, Desmoulin's whorl snail is listed as endangered, although it occurs in a number of areas in a band from Norfolk to Dorset, with outlying populations in Kent and the Llŷn Peninsula in North Wales[5] and has probably been under-reported in the past because of its minute size. Its presence on the site of the planned Newbury bypass caused the building of that road to be postponed; the building works were able to go ahead once the snails had been moved to a new habitat nearby. It is reported to have since died out at the new site,[17][18] but the same report states "Desmoulin's whorl snail is now considered less scarce than it was 10 years ago".
Deutsche Post featured V. moulinsiana on a 2002 German €0.51 postage stamp as part of a series on endangered species of animals.[19]
This article incorporates public domain text from reference [15].