''Trochulus caelatus'' 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 ...

, 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 ...

in the family

Hygromiidae Hygromiidae is a taxonomic family of small to medium-sized air-breathing land snails, terrestrial pulmonate gastropod mollusks in the superfamily Helicoidea.Helicellidae Ihering, 1909 Anatomy Some snails in genera within this family create and ...

, the hairy snails and their allies.

Distribution

This species is

endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found only 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 foun ...

to the northwestern

Jura Mountains The Jura Mountains ( ) are a sub-alpine mountain range a short distance north of the Western Alps and mainly demarcate a long part of the French–Swiss border. While the Jura range proper (" folded Jura", ) is located in France and Switzerla ...

Switzerland Switzerland, officially the Swiss Confederation, is a landlocked country located in west-central Europe. It is bordered by Italy to the south, France to the west, Germany to the north, and Austria and Liechtenstein to the east. Switzerland ...

.G. F. J. ARMBRUSTER, C. ALVAREZ, M. PESARO and B. BAUR (November 2007) "Polymorphic microsatellite DNA markers in the endangered land snail, ''Trichia caelata'' (Gastropoda, Stylommatophora)". '' Molecular Ecology Notes'' 7(6): 1123-1124.

Description

The shell height is about 4 mm, and the width is around 8 mm. The shell is typically adorned with hair-like structures, which are a characteristic feature of many species within the genus

Trochulus ''Trochulus'' is a genus of small air-breathing land snails, terrestrial molluscs, terrestrial pulmonate gastropod mollusks in the subfamily Trochulininae of the family Hygromiidae, the hairy snails and their allies. Taxonomy ''Trichia'' Hartman ...

. Trochulus caelatus is usually found in rocky environments within its limited geographic range.

References

External links

''Trochulus caelatus''
at AnimalBase Hygromiidae Endemic fauna of Switzerland Gastropods described in 1820 Taxonomy articles created by Polbot {{Hygromiidae-stub