''Salinator fragilis'' 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 small, air-breathing land snail with an operculum, a pulmonate gastropod mollusc in the family

Amphibolidae Amphibolidae is a family of air-breathing snails with opercula, terrestrial pulmonate gastropod molluscs. This family of pulmonate gastropods, for breathe air, but also have opercula and at least some species go through a free-swimming ve ...

. The species is sometimes referred to as the fragile air breather.Northern Rivers Catchment Management Authority
/ref> It was originally described as being in the genus ''

Ampullaria ''Pila'' is a genus of large freshwater snails with an operculum, African and Asian apple snails, aquatic gastropod mollusks in the family Ampullariidae, the apple snails. Distribution Distribution of the genus ''Pila'' include Africa, Mada ...

'', but was split off into the genus ''

Salinator ''Salinator'' is a genus of small, air-breathing, terrestrial or semi-marine snails with an operculum, pulmonate gastropod molluscs in the subfamily Salinatorinae of the family Amphibolidae. MolluscaBase eds. (2022). MolluscaBase. Salinator ...

'' in 1900 by

Charles Hedley Charles Hedley (27 February 1862 – 14 September 1926) was a naturalist, specifically a malacologist. Born in Britain, he spent most of his life in Australia. He was the winner of the 1925 Clarke Medal. Early life Hedley was born in the vicar ...

.Indo-Pacific Molluscan Database

Distribution

This species lives on the coast of Australia and also in

Melanesia Melanesia (, ) is a subregion of Oceania in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It extends from Indonesia's New Guinea in the west to Fiji in the east, and includes the Arafura Sea. The region includes the four independent countries of Fiji, ...

. The species also reported from mangrove ecosystems of India i.e.

Sunderbans Sundarbans (pronounced ) is a mangrove area in the delta formed by the confluence of the Padma, Brahmaputra and Meghna Rivers in the Bay of Bengal. It spans the area from the Baleswar River in Bangladesh's division of Khulna to the Hooghly Ri ...

, Kakinada bay and

Mumbai Mumbai (, ; also known as Bombay — the official name until 1995) is the capital city of the Indian state of Maharashtra and the ''de facto'' financial centre of India. According to the United Nations, as of 2018, Mumbai is the secon ...

.G. Kantharajan, P.K. Pandey, P. Krishnan, V. Deepak Samuel, V.S. Bharti, R. Purvaja, Molluscan diversity in the mangrove ecosystem of Mumbai, west coast of India, In Regional Studies in Marine Science, Volume 14, 2017, Pages 102-111, ISSN 2352-4855, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rsma.2017.06.002.

Habitat

This snail lives in

salt-marsh A salt marsh or saltmarsh, also known as a coastal salt marsh or a tidal marsh, is a coastal ecosystem in the upper coastal intertidal zone between land and open saltwater or brackish water that is regularly flooded by the tides. It is dominated ...

es,

estuaries An estuary is a partially enclosed coastal body of brackish water with one or more rivers or streams flowing into it, and with a free connection to the open sea. Estuaries form a transition zone between river environments and maritime environme ...

and

mangrove A mangrove is a shrub or tree that grows in coastal saline or brackish water. The term is also used for tropical coastal vegetation consisting of such species. Mangroves are taxonomically diverse, as a result of convergent evolution in several ...

ecosystems.

Diet

This species feeds on

detritus In biology, detritus () is dead particulate organic material, as distinguished from dissolved organic material. Detritus typically includes the bodies or fragments of bodies of dead organisms, and fecal material. Detritus typically hosts commu ...

References

* Golding R.E., Ponder W.F. & Byrne M. 2007. ''Taxonomy and anatomy of Amphiboloidea (Gastropoda: Heterobranchia: Archaeopulmonata).'' Zootaxa 1476: 1-50 page(s): 10 {{Taxonbar, from=Q3079194 Amphibolidae Taxa named by Jean-Baptiste Lamarck Gastropods described in 1822