Viviparus viviparus

Blunt mud snail ( Viviparus viviparus )

The Blunt mud snail, also mud snail ( Viviparus viviparus ), is a freshwater snail from the family of river snails ( order Architaenioglossa ).

Features

The housing comprises 5.5 to 6 turns, and is up to 4 cm. The turns are rounded, but not stage discontinued. You are offset from each other by a distinct suture. The apex is blunt and the umbilicus narrow.

Lifestyle and dissemination

V. viviparus lives in moderately flowing rivers and lakes. It prefers clear water and lives of green algae ( 5%), higher plants ( 10%) and predominantly of detritus ( 85%). Using slime threads which are formed on the gills based food particles and plankton can be filtered from the water. Then the mucus threads are eaten together with the detritus.

The species occurs in Western, Central and Eastern Europe. In Scandinavia it was found to southern Norway and southern Sweden.

Similar Species

You can see the two very similar species V. viviparus and V. differ contectus (peak mud snail ) best understood from the dismissal of the individual whorls of the case: V. viviparus has leaner, not stage remote housing turns; with V. contectus the bauchigeren whorls are clearly stage discontinued. The apex is at V. contectus pointed, V. viviparus, however blunt. The umbilicus is at V. viviparus much narrower, almost closed.

Subdivision

The Blunt mud snail is often separated in the literature into two subspecies:

• Viviparus viviparus viviparus (Linnaeus, 1758)
• Viviparus viviparus penthicus ( Servain, 1884)

The subspecies V. v. penthicus should only occur in the Bille river, a small tributary of the river Alster in Hamburg as well as in the Oder near Frankfurt / Oder. After Glöer and Zettler (2005) is probably only an impoverished form of Viviparus viviparus.