Sunday, November 25, 2012

Snail Shells

To give you an idea of what Triodopsis shells look like (without focusing on the snail this time), I found a couple during the daytime, when the snails were "sleeping", and took some photos.

This one caught my eye because of the beautiful purplish-red section near the lip. You can clearly see the 3 "teeth" around the lip that characterize the genus. I also measured the shell, and it was about 1 cm wide, the common size for Triodopsis.


Here's another bicolored one:


Now, I found some other shells that at first glance appeared to be Triodopsis but which on further inspection lacked the pronounced outer lip and 3 "teeth". In fact, they don't really have lips at all. I'm guessing they've been damaged somehow? But these features could indicate a different genus altogether. 

Specimen #1:


Specimen #2 (found at night):


Some good sites for looking at shells are:
http://www.jaxshells.org/triodopsis.htm (pics of other genera besides Triodopsis)
http://www.conchology.be/?t=65&family=POLYGYRIDAE (you can browse other families too)

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