''Cerion nanus'' is a

species In biology, a species is the basic unit of Taxonomy (biology), 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 ...

of medium-sized 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 gastropod in the family Cerionidae.

Distribution and Ecology

This species is

endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also found els ...

to the island of Little Cayman, Cayman Islands in the

Caribbean Sea The Caribbean Sea ( es, Mar Caribe; french: Mer des Caraïbes; ht, Lanmè Karayib; jam, Kiaribiyan Sii; nl, Caraïbische Zee; pap, Laman Karibe) is a sea of the Atlantic Ocean in the tropics of the Western Hemisphere. It is bounded by Mexico ...

, where it is found among ''Evolvulus arbuscula'' and ''E. squamosum'' plants, which grow in this coastal dry limestone shrub. Shells were found in 1975 at three sites, encompassing a total area of 35,000 m² surrounding the North Shore Track. It is sympatric throughout its range with ''Cerion pannosum'', a species with a much larger distribution and shell-size, which has probably ecologically replaced ''C. nanus''. However, this replacement has not yet occurred, suggesting that this species may have never had a larger population. Currently several small populations exist along the Spot Bay Road in numbers far larger than originally suspected. ''C. nanus'' can be identified by the color of their shells, which are grayish or white, and emerge from their hibernation during rainy days but are difficult to identify during dry weather.

Distribution and Ecology

References

Further reading