Opisthostoma vermiculum 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...

 with an operculum

Operculum (gastropod)

The operculum, meaning little lid, is a corneous or calcareous anatomical structure which exists in many groups of sea snails and freshwater snails, and also in a few groups of land snails...

, 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...

 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 Diplommatinidae

Diplommatinidae

Diplommatinidae is a family of small land snails with an operculum, terrestrial gastropod mollusks in the superfamily Cyclophoridae.-Genera:*Subfamily Diplommatininae L...

. It possesses four different coiling axes; the most for any known living gastropod. This member of the Diplommatinidae

Diplommatinidae

Diplommatinidae is a family of small land snails with an operculum, terrestrial gastropod mollusks in the superfamily Cyclophoridae.-Genera:*Subfamily Diplommatininae L...

 family is endemic to Malaysia. Its natural habitat

Habitat

* Habitat , a place where a species lives and grows*Human habitat, a place where humans live, work or play** Space habitat, a space station intended as a permanent settlement...

 is tropical limestone outcrops.

Shell description

When the species was discovered, thirty-eight specimens were collected: the shell shapes showed low variation. The snail shell is 1.5 millimetre (0.0590551181102362 in) high and 0.9 millimetre (0.0354330708661417 in) wide.

This is the first snail reported that has a 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...

 which shows four discernible coiling axes. The body whorl

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...

s of the shell thrice detach and twice reattach to preceding whorls without any support. The detached whorls coil around three secondary axes in addition to their primary teleoconch axis. All specimens showed these features in a homogeneous way.

Opisthostoma vermiculum was selected as one of "The Top 10 New Species" described in 2008 by The International Institute for Species Exploration at Arizona State University

Arizona State University

Arizona State University is a public research university located in the Phoenix Metropolitan Area of the State of Arizona...

 and an international committee of taxonomists.

Conservation

These snails are found only on limestone karst

KARST

Kilometer-square Area Radio Synthesis Telescope is a Chinese telescope project to which FAST is a forerunner. KARST is a set of large spherical reflectors on karst landforms, which are bowlshaped limestone sinkholes named after the Kras region in Slovenia and Northern Italy. It will consist of...

s. There is significant quarring activities in the area, and this makes the species particularly vulnerable to extinction.

External links

• http://snailseyeview.blogspot.com/2008/01/opisthostoma-and-mad-womans-knitting.html