''Sphendone insolita'', common name the Palau rock snail, 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 air-breathing tropical land snail, a

terrestrial Terrestrial refers to things related to land or the planet Earth. 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 or near the ground, as opposed to ...

pulmonate gastropod in the

family Family (from la, familia) is a group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or affinity (by marriage or other relationship). The purpose of the family is to maintain the well-being of its members and of society. Idea ...

Partulidae Partulidae is a family of air-breathing land snails, terrestrial gastropod mollusks in the superfamily Pupilloidea.MolluscaBase eds. (2021). MolluscaBase. Partulidae Pilsbry, 1900. Accessed through: World Register of Marine Species at: http:/ ...

. This species is

endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also found els ...

Palau Palau,, officially the Republic of Palau and historically ''Belau'', ''Palaos'' or ''Pelew'', is an island country and microstate in the western Pacific. The nation has approximately 340 islands and connects the western chain of the Ca ...

Taxonomy and naming

John Slapcinsky and Fred Kraus described a new species from southern Ngeruktabel Island and nearby

Mecherchar Eil Malk or Mecherchar is the main island of the Mecherchar Islands, an island group of Palau in the Pacific Ocean. In a more narrow sense, just the southeastern peninsula of Mecherchar is called Eil Malk. Geography Eil Malk is located 23 kilom ...

, which they deem sufficiently different from all other Partulids to merit being placed in an entirely new

genus Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms as well as viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus comes above species and below family. In binomial n ...

. This species is named ''Sphendone insolita'', where ''Sphendone'' means a sling missile in

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

, a reference to the bullet-shape of the shells of the snails, and ''insolita'' means 'unusual' in

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power ...

, in reference to the shape and

ecological Ecology () is the study of the relationships between living organisms, including humans, and their biophysical environment, physical environment. Ecology considers organisms at the individual, population, community (ecology), community, ecosy ...

habits of the snail, both of which are unusual for a Partulid.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q55633696 Partulidae