Photo of the day (30): Oxyloma elegans

Oxyloma elegans is a hygrophilous land snail from the family Succineidae. Oxyloma elegans inhabits water margins on sunny places with cattail Typha sp. or with other plants. This looks like a great locality for Oxyloma elegans, because it it sunny, the habitat with water margin is large and it has suitable plants:

Some dead plants on the water margin:

Detail of the debris:

There are visible many Oxyloma elegans snails among the remnants of dead plants. More than 15 snails are visible on the same place on the photo. All of them are Oxyloma elegans. The sandpit is quite new and there were no freshwater snails yet and there were no other wetland snail species. Other succineids such as Succinea putris did not invaded the locality yet and Oxyloma elegans occupied all suitable places there.

Left side view of Oxyloma elegans in situ:

Left side view in the lab:

Right side view in the lab:

Top view in the lab:

View of the foot in the lab:

References

Horsák M., Juřičková L. & Picka J. 2013: Měkkýši České a Slovenské republiky. Molluscs of the Czech and Slovak Republics. Kabourek, Zlín, 264 pp. (in Czech and English). page 65.

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