''Maizaniella sapoensis'' 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), ...

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 ...

with an operculum, 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 ...

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

Maizaniidae Maizaniidae is a family of small land snails with an operculum, terrestrial gastropod molluscs in the superfamily Cyclophoroidea Cyclophoroidea is a superfamily of land snails with an operculum, terrestrial gastropods within the order Ar ...

Taxonomy

The specific name ''sapoensis'' is named after

Sapo National Park Sapo National Park is a national park in Sinoe County, Liberia. It is the country's largest protected area of rainforest, was the first national park established in the country, and contains the second-largest area of primary tropical rainfore ...

Liberia Liberia, officially the Republic of Liberia, is a country on the West African coast. It is bordered by Sierra Leone to Liberia–Sierra Leone border, its northwest, Guinea to Guinea–Liberia border, its north, Ivory Coast to Ivory Coast–Lib ...

, where it lives. The species is provisionally attributed to the subgenus '' Spirulozania'' on account of the conspicuous spiral sculpture. Type material is stored in the National Museum of Natural History, Leiden (

Rijksmuseum van Natuurlijke Historie The Rijksmuseum van Natuurlijke Historie (National Museum of Natural History) was a museum on the Rapenburg in Leiden, the Netherlands. It was founded in 1820 by Royal Decree from a merger of several existing collections including Temminck's own ...

Distribution

Distribution of ''Maizaniella sapoensis'' include

and it is only known from the type locality, .

Description

She shape of the shell is high-spired in comparison with other ''Maizaniella'' species. The color of the

periostracum The periostracum ( ) is a thin, organic coating (or "skin") that is the outermost layer of the shell of many shelled animals, including molluscs and brachiopods. Among molluscs, it is primarily seen in snails and clams, i.e. in gastropods an ...

is pale yellow-brown. The shell has three

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

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 ...

is regularly curved, with thin axial ribs (about 20 on the third whorl) and with fine spiral threads. The aperture is large and circular, about 1 mm in diameter. The

umbilicus Umbilicus may refer to: *The navel or belly button *Umbilicus (mollusc), a feature of gastropod, Nautilus and Ammonite shell anatomy *Umbilicus (plant), ''Umbilicus'' (plant), a genus of over ninety species of perennial flowering plants *Umbilicus ...

is narrow. The size of the shell is extremely small (about 2.1 mm wide at three whorls). The width of the shell is 2.05-2.3 mm. The height of the shell is from 1.88 m to estimated 2.1 mm.

Ecology

It was recorded in a floor litter from higher spots in a swampy area in wet undisturbed lowland rainforest (evergreen forest) at altitude 140 m.

References

This article incorporates Creative Commons (CC-BY-3.0) text from the reference {{Taxonbar, from=Q24884985 Maizaniidae