''Anguispira russelli'' was a species of

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 inclu ...

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 molluscs, terrestrial gastropod mollusks that have gastropod shell, shel ...

in the

family Family (from ) is a Social group, group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or Affinity (law), affinity (by marriage or other relationship). It forms the basis for social order. Ideally, families offer predictabili ...

Discidae, the disk snails. The species is only known from

fossilized A fossil (from Classical Latin , ) is any preserved remains, impression, or trace of any once-living thing from a past geological age. Examples include bones, shells, exoskeletons, stone imprints of animals or microbes, objects preserved ...

specimens. It is named after L.S. Russell, former Director of Zoology at the

National Museum of Canada The national museums of Canada () are the nine museums in Canada designated under the federal ''Museums Act'' and operated by the Government of Canada. The national museums are responsible for "preserving and promoting the heritage of Canada and al ...

.Tozer, E.T. (1956)
Uppermost Cretaceous and Paleocene nonmarine molluscan faunas of western Alberta
''Geological Survey of Canada, Memoir.'' 280: 1-125., pages 90-91, pl. 8, figs 10a-c

Fossils

The most well-studied and well-documented ''A. russelli'' fossil was found by

paleontologist Paleontology, also spelled as palaeontology or palæontology, is the scientific study of the life of the past, mainly but not exclusively through the study of fossils. Paleontologists use fossils as a means to classify organisms, measure geolo ...

Edward Tozer in 1956. It was located in

Paskapoo formation The Paskapoo Formation is a stratigraphic unit of Middle to Late Paleocene age in the Western Canada Sedimentary Basin. The Paskapoo underlies much of southwestern Alberta, and takes the name from the Blindman River ( means 'He is blind' in Cr ...

in western

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its Provinces and territories of Canada, ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, making it the world's List of coun ...

, dating the shell to the

Paleocene The Paleocene ( ), or Palaeocene, is a geological epoch (geology), epoch that lasted from about 66 to 56 mya (unit), million years ago (mya). It is the first epoch of the Paleogene Period (geology), Period in the modern Cenozoic Era (geology), ...

.Roth, B. (1986)
Land mollusks (Gastropoda: Pulmonata) from Early Tertiary Bozeman Group, Montana
''Proceedings of the California Academy of Sciences.'' 44(11): 237-267., ''available online at'' https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/16005679 page(s): 262

Physical appearance

The fossil gathered by Tozer is 14 mm (0.55 in) in width and 7 mm (0.28 in) in height. The shell is a depressed heliciform in shape with 5 whorls that gradually increase in size from the umbilicus and a thin outer lip. The shell is rounded and coarsely striate, with the umbilicus taking up 1/3 of the shell.

References

Molluscs of North America Discidae {{gastropod-stub