''Oxyloma elegans'' 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 small European

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 ...

belonging to the family

Succineidae Succineidae are a family of small to medium-sized, air-breathing land snails (and 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 ...

, the amber snails.

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 ...

usually has fewer than 3

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

body whorl The body whorl is part of the morphology (biology), morphology of the gastropod shell, shell in those gastropod mollusks that possess a coiled shell. The term is also sometimes used in a similar way to describe the shell of a cephalopod mollusk ...

is very large and 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 ...

is short. The shell is yellowish amber coloured with irregular radial growth lines. The width of the shell is 6–8 mm. The height of the shell is 9–17 mm (up to 20 mm). Oxyloma elegans

Genitalia A sex organ, also known as a reproductive organ, is a part of an organism that is involved in sexual reproduction. Sex organs constitute the primary sex characteristics of an organism. Sex organs are responsible for producing and transporting ...

differences separate ''Oxyloma elegans'' from ''

Oxyloma sarsii ''Oxyloma sarsii'' is a species of small European land snail, a terrestrial pulmonate gastropod mollusk belonging to the family Succineidae, the amber snails. Description Only reliably separated from the very similar '' Oxyloma elegans'' by diss ...

'' and the genus ''

Succinea ''Succinea'', common name the amber snails, is a large genus of small, air-breathing land snails, terrestrial pulmonate gastropod molluscs in the family Succineidae.MolluscaBase eds. (2021). MolluscaBase. Succinea Draparnaud, 1801. Accessed thr ...

''. The epiphallus is slightly curved and inside a short penis prolongation distance between penis and the pedunculus is very short.Species summary for ''Oxyloma elegans''

Animalbase AnimalBase is a project brought to life in 2004 and is maintained by the University of Göttingen, Germany. The goal of the AnimalBase project is to digitize early zoological literature, provide copyright-free open access to zoological works, and p ...

, accessed 14 June, last modified 26 October 2013.

Ecology

''Oxyloma elegans'' occurs on vegetation in moist habitats such as

marsh In ecology, a marsh is a wetland that is dominated by herbaceous plants rather than by woody plants.Keddy, P.A. 2010. Wetland Ecology: Principles and Conservation (2nd edition). Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK. 497 p More in genera ...

es.

Distribution

This species occurs in

Europe Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east ...

an countries and islands including: *

Great Britain Great Britain is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean off the north-west coast of continental Europe, consisting of the countries England, Scotland, and Wales. With an area of , it is the largest of the British Isles, the List of European ...

Ireland Ireland (, ; ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe. Geopolitically, the island is divided between the Republic of Ireland (officially Names of the Irish state, named Irelan ...

Czech Republic The Czech Republic, also known as Czechia, and historically known as Bohemia, is a landlocked country in Central Europe. The country is bordered by Austria to the south, Germany to the west, Poland to the northeast, and Slovakia to the south ...

- nearly threatened (NT) Horsák M., Juřičková L., Beran L., Čejka T. & Dvořák L. (2010). "Komentovaný seznam měkkýšů zjištěných ve volné přírodě České a Slovenské republiky. nnotated list of mollusc species recorded outdoors in the Czech and Slovak Republics. ''

Malacologica Bohemoslovaca ''Malacologica Bohemoslovaca'' is a peer-reviewed open access scientific journal covering all aspects of malacology. It was published by the Slovak Academy of Sciences since 2005. It is published by the Department of Botany and Zoology, Faculty of ...

'', Suppl. 1: 1-37
PDF
*

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It extends from the Baltic Sea in the north to the Sudetes and Carpathian Mountains in the south, bordered by Lithuania and Russia to the northeast, Belarus and Ukrai ...

* Russia -

Sverdlovsk oblast Sverdlovsk Oblast ( rus, Свердловская область, Sverdlovskaya oblastʹ, p=svʲɪrdˈlofskəjə ˈobləsʲtʲ) is a federal subject (an oblast) of Russia located in the Ural Federal District. Its administrative center is the c ...

http://ecoinf.uran.ru/content/4catalog/20.shtml *

Ukraine Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the List of European countries by area, second-largest country in Europe after Russia, which Russia–Ukraine border, borders it to the east and northeast. Ukraine also borders Belarus to the nor ...

Balashov I. & Gural-Sverlova N. (2012). "An annotated checklist of the terrestrial molluscs of Ukraine". ''

Journal of Conchology The ''Journal of Conchology'' is a peer-reviewed scientific journal published by The Conchological Society of Great Britain and Ireland, covering research in conchology and malacology. It claims to be the world's oldest continuing publication on t ...

'' 41(1): 91-109. *

Slovakia Slovakia, officially the Slovak Republic, is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is bordered by Poland to the north, Ukraine to the east, Hungary to the south, Austria to the west, and the Czech Republic to the northwest. Slovakia's m ...

Bulgaria Bulgaria, officially the Republic of Bulgaria, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the eastern portion of the Balkans directly south of the Danube river and west of the Black Sea. Bulgaria is bordered by Greece and Turkey t ...

Georgiev D. G. (2006). "Two new species from the family Succineidae (Beck, 1837) (Gastropoda: Pulmonata) to the fauna of Bulgaria". ''Scientific Studies of the University of Plovdiv, Biology, Animalia'' 41: 7-11
PDF

References

External links

Succineidae Gastropods described in 1826 {{Succineidae-stub