''Hyperaulax ridleyi'' is a

species A species () is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate sexes or mating types can produce fertile offspring, typically by sexual reproduction. It is the basic unit of Taxonomy (biology), ...

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

, a

terrestrial Terrestrial refers to things related to land or the planet Earth, as opposed to extraterrestrial. 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 o ...

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 ...

gastropod Gastropods (), commonly known as slugs and snails, belong to a large Taxonomy (biology), taxonomic class of invertebrates within the phylum Mollusca called Gastropoda (). This class comprises snails and slugs from saltwater, freshwater, and fro ...

mollusk Mollusca is a phylum of protostomic invertebrate animals, whose members are known as molluscs or mollusks (). Around 76,000 extant species of molluscs are recognized, making it the second-largest animal phylum after Arthropoda. The ...

in the family Odontostomidae.Breure A. S. H. & Ablett J. D. (2012) "Annotated type catalogue of the Bothriembryontidae and Odontostomidae (Mollusca, Gastropoda, Orthalicoidea) in the Natural History Museum, London". ''

ZooKeys ''ZooKeys'' is a peer-reviewed open access scientific journal covering zoological taxonomy, phylogeny, and biogeography. It was established in 2008 and the founding editor-in-chief was Terry Erwin (Smithsonian Institution The Smithsonian ...

'' 182: 1-70. . ''Hyperaulax ridleyi'' is the

type species In International_Code_of_Zoological_Nomenclature, 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 spe ...

of the genus ''Hyperaulax''. This species is native to, and its occurrence is restricted to,

Fernando de Noronha Fernando de Noronha (), officially the State District of Fernando de Noronha () and formerly known as the Federal Territory of Fernando de Noronha () until 1988, is an archipelago in the Atlantic Ocean, part of the state of Pernambuco, Brazil, and ...

, an island off the coast of

Brazil Brazil, officially the Federative Republic of Brazil, is the largest country in South America. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by area, fifth-largest country by area and the List of countries and dependencies by population ...

. The snail was described in 1890 by

Edgar Albert Smith Edgar Albert Smith (29 November 1847 – 22 July 1916) was a British zoologist and malacologist. His father was Frederick Smith, a well-known entomologist, and assistant keeper of zoology in the British Museum, Bloomsbury. Edgar Albert Smith ...

, a zoologist with the

British Museum The British Museum is a Museum, public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is the largest in the world. It documents the story of human cu ...

. The type specimen is stored in the

British Museum of Natural History The Natural History Museum in London is a museum that exhibits a vast range of specimens from various segments of natural history. It is one of three major museums on Exhibition Road in South Kensington, the others being the Science Museum (Lo ...

.Breure, A. S. H . & J. R. Schouten (27 February 1985). "Notes on and descriptions of Bulimulidae (Mollusca, Gastropoda), III." ''

Zoologische Verhandelingen ''Zoologische Verhandelingen'' was a Dutch scientific journal covering research in zoology. It was published between 1948 and 2002 by the Rijksmuseum van Natuurlijke Historie in Leiden Leiden ( ; ; in English language, English and Archaism, a ...

'' Leiden 216: 1-98, figs. 1-33, pls. 1-4.
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Shell 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 Science Biology * Seashell, a hard outer layer of a marine ani ...

is umbilicated, ovate, conic above, moderately solid, brown with a buff line at the periphery, very delicately sculptured with lines of growth, and sometimes has low wrinkles and fine impressed spiral striae. 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. Spire ...

of the shell is conic. The

apex The apex is the highest point of something. The word may also refer to: Arts and media Fictional entities * Apex (comics) A-Bomb Abomination Absorbing Man Abraxas Abyss Abyss is the name of two characters appearing in Ameri ...

is obtuse. The

sculpture Sculpture is the branch of the visual arts that operates in three dimensions. Sculpture is the three-dimensional art work which is physically presented in the dimensions of height, width and depth. It is one of the plastic arts. Durable sc ...

of the nepionic

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). In nature File:Photograph and axial plane floral diagram ...

(the whorls immediately following the embryonic whorls) has superficial vermiculate (worm-like) wrinkles. The shell has 5½ slightly convex whorls. The last whorl is a little descending and then slightly ascending in front, distinctly constricted behind the peristome. The base of the shell is perforated by a deep and conspicuous, though not wide, umbilicus. The shell

aperture In optics, the aperture of an optical system (including a system consisting of a single lens) is the hole or opening that primarily limits light propagated through the system. More specifically, the entrance pupil as the front side image o ...

is ovate, and is a fleshy-brown color inside. There is a pale median line in half the length of the shell. The peristome is flatly reflexed throughout. The outer lip is subangularly arcuate above, terminations joined by a thin or thick parietal callus, which is thickened and somewhat tubercular above, separated by a vertical groove or channel from a similar callous lobe on the outer lip, near its insertion. The width of the shell is 6.2-7.2 mm. The height of the shell is 10.5-12.5 mm. The height of the aperture is 5.2-6.2 mm. The width of the type specimen is 5.9. The height of the type specimen is 11.4.

Habitat

It lives in trees and on the ground.''Hyperaulax ridleyi'' (Smith, 1890)
CdB - Conchology. Accessed 22 December 2009

Predators

* ''

Amphisbaena ridleyi ''Amphisbaena ridleyi'', known by the common names Ridley's worm lizard or the Noronha worm lizard, is a species of amphisbaenian in the family Amphisbaenidae. The species is endemic to the island of Fernando de Noronha off the coast of Brazil. I ...

References

This article incorporates public domain text from reference.

Pilsbry H. A. (1897-1898) '' Manual of Conchology, structural and systematic, with illustrations of the species. Second series: Pulmonata
Volume 11
American Bulimulidae: Bulimulus, Neopetraeus, Oxychona, and South American Drymaeus''. Continued by H. A. Pilsbry
page 82-83plate 14
figure 11-13. {{DEFAULTSORT:Hyperaulax Ridleyi Odontostomidae Gastropods described in 1890 Taxa named by Edgar Albert Smith