Marisa cornuarietis
| Marisa cornuarietis | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Drawing of a live individual of Marisa cornuarietis: the visible soft parts are covered in dark spots. The edge of the round operculum is visible under the shell. | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Mollusca |
| Class: | Gastropoda |
| (unranked): |
clade Caenogastropoda informal group Architaenioglossa |
| Superfamily: | Ampullarioidea |
| Family: | Ampullariidae |
| Genus: | Marisa |
| Species: | M. cornuarietis |
| Binomial name | |
|
Marisa cornuarietis (Linnaeus, 1758) |
|
| Synonyms | |
|
Marisa chiquitensis |
|
informal group Architaenioglossa
Marisa chiquitensis
Marisa cornuarietis, common name the giant ramshorn snail, is a species of large freshwater snail with an operculum, an aquatic gastropod mollusk in the family Ampullariidae, the apple snail family.
These snails are popular in aquariums, and are also used in the wild as a biological control agent.
It is widespread in northern South America, although the type locality is unknown. The giant ramshorn snail is native to northern South America and Central America, including Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, French Guiana, Guyana, Panama, Suriname, Trinidad and Tobago and Venezuela.
Non-indigenous distribution of Marisa cornuarietis include:
Although Marisa snails superficially resemble the great ramshorn snail because of the planispiral coiling of their shells, they are not at all closely related to true ramshorn snails in the family Planorbidae.
This is an easily recognizable species: the shell is flat-coiled (planispiral). The shell color varies from pale to darker red or brown or more vivid shades of those colors, and is fairly often striped.
The shell diameter is usually 35–50 mm (2 in) or even larger.
This species has gills as well as a lung, to ensure efficient underwater respiration even in condition of low levels of dissolved oxygen.
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Wikipedia