''Salinator fragilis'' 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, 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 ...

with an operculum, a

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

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 velig ...

. 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'', but was split off into the genus '' Salinator'' in 1900 by

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

.Indo-Pacific Molluscan Database

Distribution

This species lives on the coast of

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...

and also in

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

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

Sunderbans Sundarbans (; pronounced ) is a mangrove forest area in the Ganges Delta formed by the confluence of the Ganges, Brahmaputra and Meghna Rivers in the Bay of Bengal. It spans the area from the Hooghly River in India's state of West Bengal ...

, Kakinada bay and

Mumbai Mumbai ( ; ), also known as Bombay ( ; its official name until 1995), is the capital city of the Indian state of Maharashtra. Mumbai is the financial capital and the most populous city proper of India with an estimated population of 12 ...

.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, saltmarsh or salting, 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 ...

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 environm ...

and

mangrove A mangrove is a shrub or tree that grows mainly in coastal saline water, saline or brackish water. Mangroves grow in an equatorial climate, typically along coastlines and tidal rivers. They have particular adaptations to take in extra oxygen a ...

ecosystems.

Diet

This species feeds on

detritus In biology, detritus ( or ) is organic matter made up of the decomposition, decomposing remains of organisms and plants, and also of feces. Detritus usually hosts communities of microorganisms that colonize and decomposition, decompose (Reminera ...

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