Liguus virgineus

Liguus virgineus
Five views of a shell of Liguus virgineus
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Mollusca
Class: Gastropoda
(unranked): clade Heterobranchia

clade Euthyneura
clade Panpulmonata
clade Eupulmonata
clade Stylommatophora
informal group Sigmurethra

Superfamily: Orthalicoidea
Family: Orthalicidae
Subfamily: Orthalicinae
Genus: Liguus
Species: L. virgineus
Binomial name
Liguus virgineus
(Linnaeus, 1758)

Liguus virgineus, also known as the Candy Cane Snail or the "'Virgin Liguus'", is a species of air-breathing land snail, a terrestrial pulmonate gastropod mollusk in the family Orthalicidae.[1]

Liguus virgineus is a type species of the genus Liguus.

Distribution

This species is native to the Caribbean island of Hispaniola (Haiti and the Dominican Republic), east of Cuba [2][3][4][5]

However, over the past 25 years there have been at least three separate reports of living specimens being found in the Florida Keys (Key Largo, Long Key, Key West).[3]

In one such report circa 1989, a U.S. Air Force Sergeant reported finding a living pair on a banana tree in his back yard while living in U. S. Government housing at Sigsbee Park in Key West. The two shells were positively identified as Liguus virgineus, but their live collection in Key West could not be verified.[3]

Habitat

These sea snails live on trees and feed on moss, fungi and microscopic algae covering the bark.[6]

Shells of Liguus virgineus from Cuba, on display at the Museo Civico di Storia Naturale di Milano

Description

Shells of Liguus virgineus can reach a length of 30–60 millimetres (1.2–2.4 in). These small shells are oval-conical shaped, thin but robust. Shell surface is mooth and shiny. The aperture is semicircular. The background color of the shell is white or creamy-white, with thin bright spiral stripes of orange, purple and yellow. The aperture may be dark-grey or white-purple with scarlet lips.[6]

Human culture

Shells of these land snails for years have been over-harvested for the shell craft trade. The destruction of the forestal habitat and the commercial overcollecting could lead to the extinction of this species.[7] Now harvesting and selling these shells is forbidden by the law.

References

Shell of Liguus virgineus
  1. Biolib
  2. Eladio Fernández — Biodiversidad a Través de Un Recorrido Fotográfico. Harvard University Press, 2007 — 374с.
  3. 1 2 3 Ligus virgineus at Jaxshells
  4. The Geographic Distribution of Liguus Species
  5. Galli C.: WMSDB - Worldwide Mollusc Species
  6. 1 2 William Greene Binney, Thomas Bland -Land and Fresh Water Shells of North America: Pulmonata geophila, Том 1.
  7. The Liguus of Hispaniola.

External links


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