Cremnoconchus
Encyclopedia
Cremnoconchus is a genus
Genus
In biology, a genus is a low-level taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms, which is an example of definition by genus and differentia...

 of small freshwater snail
Freshwater snail
A freshwater snail is one kind of freshwater mollusc, the other kind being freshwater clams and mussels, i.e. freshwater bivalves. Specifically a freshwater snail is a gastropod that lives in a watery non-marine habitat. The majority of freshwater gastropods have a shell, with very few exceptions....

s, gastropod mollusks in the (mostly marine) family
Family (biology)
In biological classification, family is* a taxonomic rank. Other well-known ranks are life, domain, kingdom, phylum, class, order, genus, and species, with family fitting between order and genus. As for the other well-known ranks, there is the option of an immediately lower rank, indicated by the...

 Littorinidae
Littorinidae
Littorinidae is a taxonomic family of over 200 species of sea snails, marine gastropod molluscs in the clade Littorinimorpha, commonly known as periwinkles and found world-wide.-Names:...

, the winkles or periwinkles.

The generic name Cremnoconchus is from the Greek
Greek language
Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...

 word κρημνός which means precipice and from the Ancient Greek
Ancient Greek
Ancient Greek is the stage of the Greek language in the periods spanning the times c. 9th–6th centuries BC, , c. 5th–4th centuries BC , and the c. 3rd century BC – 6th century AD of ancient Greece and the ancient world; being predated in the 2nd millennium BC by Mycenaean Greek...

 word κόγχος which means shell.

This genus is the only freshwater genus within the Littorinidae; all other Littorinidae are marine. Two Cremnoconchus species live in waterfall
Waterfall
A waterfall is a place where flowing water rapidly drops in elevation as it flows over a steep region or a cliff.-Formation:Waterfalls are commonly formed when a river is young. At these times the channel is often narrow and deep. When the river courses over resistant bedrock, erosion happens...

s.

The genus Cremnoconchus is endemic to the Northwestern Ghats
Western Ghats
The Western Ghats, Western Ghauts or the Sahyādri is a mountain range along the western side of India. It runs north to south along the western edge of the Deccan Plateau, and separates the plateau from a narrow coastal plain along the Arabian Sea. The Western Ghats block rainfall to the Deccan...

 of India.

Species

Species within the genus Cremnoconchus include:
  • Cremnoconchus syhadrensis
    Cremnoconchus syhadrensis
    Cremnoconchus syhadrensis is a species of freshwater snail, an aquatic gastropod mollusk in the family Littorinidae, the winkles or periwinkles.Cremnoconchus syhadrensis is the type species of the genus Cremnoconchus.- Description :...

    (Blanford, 1863) - type species
  • Cremnoconchus carinatus
    Cremnoconchus carinatus
    Cremnoconchus carinatus is a species of freshwater snail, an aquatic gastropod mollusk in the family Littorinidae, the winkles or periwinkles.-Distribution:This species is endemic to the Western Ghats range, in India....

    (Layard, 1854) - synonym: Cremnoconchus fairbanki Hanley & Theobald, 1876
  • Cremnoconchus conicus Blanford, 1870
The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
x
OK