New Minute Freshwater Snail Species Discovered
Posted on November 1, 2011
A new minute freshwater snail species belonging to the genus Daphniola was found by Canella Radea, a researcher from University of Athens in a spring covered by snow on Mt. Parnassos in central Greece.
This study was published here in the open access journal Zookeys.
The new species, Daphniola eptalophos, has a transparent conical-flat coiled shell and grey-black pigmented soft body. It also has a black penis with a small colorless outgrowth on the left side near its base. D. eptalophos differs from its congeners in shell dimensions, soft body pigmentation and coloration of penis.
Daphniola is an endemic genus for Greece, inhabiting most of mainland Greece. Two of the three currently known species are included in the category Endangered and Critically Endangered in the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species 2011.1. D. eptalophos was found in only one spring until now and its population abundance appears to be low.