Vertigo lilljeborgi
Encyclopedia
Vertigo lilljeborgi is a species of minute land snail
Snail
Snail is a common name applied to most of the members of the molluscan class Gastropoda that have coiled shells in the adult stage. When the word is used in its most general sense, it includes sea snails, land snails and freshwater snails. The word snail without any qualifier is however more often...

, a terrestrial
Terrestrial animal
Terrestrial animals are animals that live predominantly or entirely on land , as compared with aquatic animals, which live predominantly or entirely in the water , or amphibians, which rely on a combination of aquatic and terrestrial habitats...

 pulmonate gastropod mollusk or micromollusk
Micromollusk
A micromollusk is a descriptive term for a shelled mollusk which is extremely small, even at full adult size. The word is usually, but not exclusively, applied to marine mollusks, although in addition, numerous species of land snails and freshwater mollusks also reach adult size at very small...

 in the family Vertiginidae
Vertiginidae
Vertiginidae is a family of minute, air-breathing land snails, terrestrial pulmonate gastropod molluscs or micromollusks in the superfamily Pupilloidea.- Distribution :...

, the vertigo snails.

Distribution

The type locality is on the southern shore of Tresjön Lake, near Ronneby
Ronneby
Ronneby is a locality and the seat of Ronneby Municipality in Blekinge County, Sweden with 11,767 inhabitants in 2005.Ronneby is regarded as the heart of "the Garden of Sweden", and in 2005 the park "Brunnsparken" in Ronneby was voted Sweden's most beautiful park. 2006 the park was voted Europe's...

, Blekinge
Blekinge
' is one of the traditional provinces of Sweden , situated in the south of the country. It borders Småland, Scania and the Baltic Sea.The name "Blekinge" comes from the adjective bleke, which corresponds to the nautical term for "dead calm"....

 province, in Sweden.

This species is known to occur in a number of countries and islands of Northern Europe
Northern Europe
Northern Europe is the northern part or region of Europe. Northern Europe typically refers to the seven countries in the northern part of the European subcontinent which includes Denmark, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, Finland and Sweden...

 including:

Shell description

The shell
Gastropod shell
The gastropod shell is a shell which is part of the body of a gastropod or snail, one kind of mollusc. The gastropod shell is an external skeleton or exoskeleton, which serves not only for muscle attachment, but also for protection from predators and from mechanical damage...

 is ventricose, ovate, strongly glossy, very finely striate, chestnut horn-color. The shell has 5 whorls
Whorl (mollusc)
A whorl is a single, complete 360° revolution or turn in the spiral growth of a mollusc shell. A spiral configuration of the shell is found in of numerous gastropods, but it is also found in shelled cephalopods including Nautilus, Spirula and the large extinct subclass of cephalopods known as the...

, rather rapidly increasing, convex, the last but little higher than the penult, double as high as the next earlier whorl, a little ascending in front. Suture is slightly oblique.

Aperture
Aperture (mollusc)
The aperture is an opening in certain kinds of mollusc shells: it is the main opening of the shell, where part of the body of the animal emerges for locomotion, feeding, etc....

 is quite piriform, or obliquely cordate, with 1 parietal tooth (sometimes with another punctiform one), 2 columellar teeth, the lower very small, often wanting; 2 short, high, equal, immersed teeth
in the palate, bounded by a reddish brown streak in front. Peristome is weak, expanded, the margins delicately united; outer margin not impressed, scarcely produced angularly forward.

The width of the adult shell varies from 1.25 to 1.5 mm, the height from 2-2.25 mm.

Vertigo lilljeborgi, compared with Vertigo moulinsiana, is much smaller, more glossy, its whorls are more tumid, and its thinner lip lacks the broad, almost colorless margin of the latter.

External links

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