Radix auricularia
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Radix auricularia Temporal range: Pleistocene–Recent |
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| A shell of Radix auricularia | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Mollusca |
| Class: | Gastropoda |
| (unranked): | clade Heterobranchia clade Euthyneura clade Panpulmonata clade Hygrophila |
| Superfamily: | Lymnaeoidea |
| Family: | Lymnaeidae |
| Subfamily: | Amphipepleinae |
| Genus: | Radix |
| Species: | R. auricularia |
| Binomial name | |
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Radix auricularia (Linnaeus, 1758) |
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| Synonyms | |
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Radix auricularia, common name the big-ear radix, is a species of medium-sized freshwater snail, an aquatic pulmonate gastropod mollusk in the family Lymnaeidae.
Radix auricularia is the type species of the genus Radix.
Forms of Radix auricularia include:
The shell is thin, roundly ovate and very inflated, such that the last whorl comprises 90% of its volume.
The shell has a rounded and broad spire that pinches in steeply at the apex. The spire short, conic, very small compared with the body whorl.
There are 4–5 whorls with deep sutures between them. The whorls are convex, inflated, smooth and rapidly increasing. The body whorl is large and spreading. The surface is shining, lines of growth are fine, wavy, crowded, with occasionally a heavy ridge representing a rest period. Sutures are deeply impressed, channeled in some specimens.
The color of the shell is yellow, beige or tan.
The ear-shaped aperture, which contains no operculum, is around 5 times higher than the spire. The aperture is very large, ovate, occupying four-fifths of the length of the entire shell. It is rounded above and flaring in old specimens below. The peristome is thin and sharp. The columella is sigmoid with a plait across the middle, which is reflected over the umbilicus.
The umbilicus is either wide or covered. Usually the umbilicus is narrow, deep, nearly closed. The epidermis is sometimes marked by light and dark lines of color, alternating.
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