Bosnian Door Snail

Herilla bosniensis (L. Pfeiffer 1863)

 
Pictures: © Alexander Mrkvicka, Vienna (mrkvicka.at).

Systematics:

Family: Clausiliidae
Subfamily: Alopiinae
Genus, Species: Herilla bosniensis (L. Pfeiffer 1863)

Source: Mollbase on http://www.mollbase.de/list/.

Door snails (Clausiliidae): Systematics of indigenous species.


Bosnian door snail (Herilla bosniensis).
 

Dimensions: H: 22 - 29 mm; W: 6 - 7 mm, N: 9 - 11 (Abbreviations).

Description: The Bosnian door snail's shell is cherry coloured to violet brown, large and almost smooth, with a narrow white thread along the suture, knotted in the upper whorls. The neck of the apertural whorl is almost rounded and striped laterally.

The columellar fold is clearly visible and almost horizontal. The principal fold is short. The palatal fold is long, extending beyond the moon fold (lunula). Often, there are several palatal folds that are not connected to the lunula. Subcolumellar fold and lower palatal fold are of equal length in their frontal part, the subcolumellar fold is invisible, observed from above. The clausilium plate is not dented or only slightly so, generally less than in Herilla ziegleri.

 
Bosnian door snail, a juvenile.
Picture: © Alexander Mrkvicka, Vienna (mrkvicka.at).

Hartmut Nordsieck: Scientific terms of the clausiliar apparatus in door snails.

Habitat and Distribution: Herilla bosniensis inhabits high, steep and bright limestone rock walls facing to the North and to the East. While in lower altitudes, the species is mainly present in river valleys, in higher altitudes (up to 1800 m MSL) it is also found at a distance from rivers.

Originally, the Bosnian door snail, as the name already states, is distributed in the Dinaric mountains from Croatia to Northern Albania. As an introduced species, it also is found in Austria, but exclusively in the Klausen gorge near Mödling in Lower Austria.

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