''Lehmannia carpatica'' 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 air-breathing land

slug Slug, or land slug, is a common name for any apparently shell-less Terrestrial mollusc, terrestrial gastropod mollusc. The word ''slug'' is also often used as part of the common name of any gastropod mollusc that has no shell, a very reduced ...

, 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 ...

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

in the family

Limacidae Limacidae, also known by their common name the keelback slugs, are a taxonomic family of medium-sized to very large, air-breathing land slugs, terrestrial pulmonate gastropod molluscs in the superfamily Limacoidea. Distribution The distributio ...

Taxonomy

When Grossu & Lupu (1963) first noted this species, in Romania, its long penis and lack of penial appendage led it to be confused with ''

Ambigolimax waterstoni ''Ambigolimax waterstoni'' is a species of air-breathing land slug, a terrestrial pulmonate gastropod mollusc in the family Limacidae. Taxonomy This is one of the several species formerly confused under the name ''Limax nyctelius'' and later ' ...

'', which at that time was incorrectly named as ''Limax nyctelius''; the later renamings as ''Lehmannia nyctelia'' or ''Ambigolimax nyctelius'' remained incorrect. Only in 2022 was the confusion recognised, requiring both ''A. waterstoni'' and ''L. carpatica'' to be formally described as distinct species. The same article described a third species, ''

Ambigolimax parvipenis ''Ambigolimax parvipenis'' is a species of air-breathing land slug, a Terrestrial molluscs, terrestrial pulmonate gastropod Mollusca, mollusc in the Limacidae. Taxonomy ''Ambigolimax parvipenis'' was first clearly characterised in 2014, based o ...

'' that had also been called ''Lehmannia nyctelia'' and confused with the other two; the article further pointed out that the original name ''Limax nyctelius'' referred to a species of ''Letourneuxia''. ''Lehmannia carpatica'' had also been misidentified as '' Mesolimax braunii'' in an article published in 1898. The adjective ''carpatica'' refers to the

Carpathian Mountains The Carpathian Mountains or Carpathians () are a range of mountains forming an arc across Central Europe and Southeast Europe. Roughly long, it is the third-longest European mountain range after the Ural Mountains, Urals at and the Scandinav ...

, along the length of which the species occurs. The type locality is

Morskie Oko Morskie Oko, or Eye of the Sea in English, is the largest and fourth-deepest lake in the Tatra Mountains, in southern Poland. It is located deep within the Tatra National Park in the Rybi Potok (the Fish Brook) Valley, of the High Tatras mount ...

in the

High Tatra Mountains The High Tatras or High Tatra Mountains (; ; ,'' Vysoki Tatry''; ; ), are a mountain range along the border of northern Slovakia in the Prešov Region, and southern Poland in the Lesser Poland Voivodeship. They are a range of the Tatra Mountains ...

of Poland. Morskie Oko rocks lichens

Occurrence and distribution

''Lehmannia carpatica'' occurs at high elevations along the Carpathian Mountains, in the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland, Hungary, Romania and Serbia. It also occurs in mountains further south, in Albania, Montenegro and Bulgaria. In both eastern Bulgaria and southern Poland there are also records from lower-altitude woodland. The slugs graze lichens on trees and rocks, and appear only at night or in the rain.

Description

The species grows to about 5 cm long (when crawling). Like other limacids, the animals are slim with a pointed tail, and the

pneumostome The pneumostome or breathing pore is a respiratory opening of the external body anatomy of a pulmonate land slug or land snail. It is a part of the respiratory system of gastropods. It is an opening in the right side of the mantle of a st ...

lies is the posterior half of the mantle. ''Lehmannia carpatica'' usually has a mottled dirty-grey to greyish-brown appearance, similar to a number of other ''

Lehmannia ''Lehmannia'' is a genus of air-breathing land slugs in the family Limacidae, the keelback slugs. The genus is distributed in Europe and North Africa.L. marginata''. A pale line runs along the midline of the back, bordered by darker markings. On the mantle, dark lines run along both sides, and there may also be dark central blotches in the middle. At high altitudes melanistic forms sometimes occur, and in

Moravia Moravia ( ; ) is a historical region in the eastern Czech Republic, roughly encompassing its territory within the Danube River's drainage basin. It is one of three historical Czech lands, with Bohemia and Czech Silesia. The medieval and early ...

a distinctive form occurs with dark spots on a pale background. The penis is long, without a penial appendage, although penis length varies considerably. These characters are shared with ''Ambigolimax waterstoni'', but that species has two prominent flaps running along the inside of the penis whereas these are lacking in ''L. carpatica'', which instead has a prominent funnel-like structure at the end of the penis, surrounding the connection to the vas deferens.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q113120610 Limacidae Gastropods of Europe