Need identification on my new pet snails (Triodopsis)

[crystalrose050595]

I have lived in the city most of my live and have never seen a live snail before. Until one rainy evening about a week or two ago. There was a small procession of snails wandering across my driveway. My cousin asked me to keep them and I agreed. I need help identifying them. They look identical to the Discus macclintocki or Iowa Pleistocene snail? The first photo is of the Discus macclintocki or Iowa Pleistocene snail. The rest of the photos are of the snails I found. Are they Iowa Pleistocene snails? If not, what kind of snails are they?

You can also see these photos on pinterest (click or copy and paste this link below) 

Discus macclintocki:

The snails I found:

Triodopsis messana Hubricht, Pinhole Three-tooth (photo added later)

[morningcoffee]

Hi there, I've fixed the image links for you, they should be working now

It's possible that these could be Discus macclintocki, are you living in Iowa?
However from what I've read, these snails only live in algific talus slopes areas ( en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algific_talus_slope ) and I'd be surprised to see them wandering around in a garden or urban area.
Also it's not too easy to see but in your bottom picture it looks like the snail has a "tooth" at the entrance to the shell, is this accurate or is it a trick of the camera? It's not very easy to find a photo of the underside of a Discus macclintocki but the one I've seen appears that they don't have this type of shell opening.
The other problem is that a lot of Discus snails look very similar - for example the snails you've found look a lot like Discus rotundatus. I'd be inclined to say that they're more likely to be a type of more common Discus snails that are regularly found in gardens and urban areas, but it's definitely worth looking into a bit more, perhaps someone else on the forum will know more?

Finally, it seems that Discus macclintocki are an endangered/protected species, so you may want to check what the law is regarding taking them from the wild, just in case.

[crystalrose050595]

Hi morningcoffee,

I have inserted a new photo of the snails I have found. It is a better view of the bottom of the shell. The snails I have do in fact have "teeth"...From what I can see there are three of them at the entrance of their shells. I do not live in Iowa, I live in the muggy, hot, and flat plains of Kansas so there is no way they can be a Iowa Pleistocene Snail. They need the cooler environment in order to survive. It probably is a Discus Rotundatus.

[morningcoffee]

Aug 12, 2014 7:14:52 GMT crystalrose050595 said:

Hi morningcoffee,

I have inserted a new photo of the snails I have found. It is a better view of the bottom of the shell. The snails I have do in fact have "teeth"...From what I can see there are three of them at the entrance of their shells. I do not live in Iowa, I live in the muggy, hot, and flat plains of Kansas so there is no way they can be a Iowa Pleistocene Snail. They need the cooler environment in order to survive. It probably is a Discus Rotundatus.

Hi crystalrose,

This is really interesting! Do all the snails have the three "teeth" at their shell entrance?

Discus rotundatus don't have this, so if they all have it then they can't be Discus rotundatus. I've been researching a little and there is a species called Daedalochila - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daedalochila . Several types of this species have "teeth" at the shell entrance, and some are found in Kansas. It's possible that this may be what you have

There is some interesting info here - "Checklist of the Land Snails of Kansas" - that you may be interested in, it seems Kansas is home to many species of snail! www.emporia.edu/ksn/v60n1-october2013/index.html

[crystalrose050595]

I think I have found what kind of snail they are. I know for sure it is one of the Triodopsis snails. It looks most like the Triodopsis messana Hubrichtaka (Pinhole Three-tooth), but it is hard to tell. They all look alike. I have included a photo of the Pinhole Three-tooth in my previous message. Thank you for helping identity my snails.

link to website.
www.jaxshells.org/messana.htm

[morningcoffee]

Aug 13, 2014 7:23:58 GMT crystalrose050595 said:

I think I have found what kind of snail they are. I know for sure it is one of the Triodopsis snails. It looks most like the Triodopsis messana Hubrichtaka (Pinhole Three-tooth), but it is hard to tell. They all look alike. I have included a photo of the Pinhole Three-tooth in my previous message. Thank you for helping identity my snails.

link to website.
www.jaxshells.org/messana.htm

I saw Triodopsis snails while I was searching, but I thought the shells all seemed too "high" for the snails you have - however the pics on the link you provided do indeed look pretty similar to your snails

[crystalrose050595]

www.jaxshells.org/triodopsis.htm

I have come to a conclusion about what kind of snails they are. All are from the genus Triodopsis. They are small snails that come in a variety of colors and sizes. Most if not all of them stay under 2 centimeters in diameter. I seem to have 2 to 3 different species in the terrarium together. I have observed them closely these past few weeks and they all get along, and even seem to have the ability to intermix with other snails of the same genus. I could not find out much about them on the internet. I did happen to find a little bit about them on the website provided on the link above. They also have good photos of the different species too.

P.S: I changed my thread's subject because my original subject ("Are these Iowa Pleistocene snails?") is no longer relevant I wanted to post this thread on the snail identification board but could not find the create thread button on that board. How do I create a thread on the identification board?

[morningcoffee]

Aug 20, 2014 20:12:59 GMT crystalrose050595 said:

www.jaxshells.org/triodopsis.htm

I have come to a conclusion about what kind of snails they are. All are from the genus Triodopsis. They are small snails that come in a variety of colors and sizes. Most if not all of them stay under 2 centimeters in diameter. I seem to have 2 to 3 different species in the terrarium together. I have observed them closely these past few weeks and they all get along, and even seem to have the ability to intermix with other snails of the same genus. I could not find out much about them on the internet. I did happen to find a little bit about them on the website provided on the link above. They also have good photos of the different species too.

P.S: I changed my thread's subject because my original subject ("Are these Iowa Pleistocene snails?") is no longer relevant I wanted to post this thread on the snail identification board but could not find the create thread button on that board. How do I create a thread on the identification board?

Mods can move threads to that forum, I'll move this one for you

[crystalrose050595]

I sent some shells of the snail to a biologist to be identified. He told me they were probably a variation of Triodopsis cragini.

[Cashell]

Of all the triodopsis snails I've never quite heard of cragini, so that's pretty interesting.

[crystalrose050595]

Nov 9, 2014 22:58:05 GMT Cashell said:

Of all the triodopsis snails I've never quite heard of cragini, so that's pretty interesting.

They either must have not been well studied out by scientists, or they are not very common. I can not seem to find any photos of them on the internet.

[muddydragon]

Sadly a lot of species aren't that well studied any more especially if they're not of economic or BBC news worthy importance (i.e. if they don't make/save money or aren't cute and fluffy) simply because people won't fund the research.

Even if they were well studied not many photos would be likely to turn up on the net except those in journal articles.

Alot of studies on animal species date back a long way, if you want some nice descriptive articles you usually have to go back to the older publications (which are usually lovely) you see a lot during the victorian craze for finding new species and IDing them, when of course photos weren't that common or just simply didn't really exist so you won't see much. Also it would depend on wether the place was part of the brittish empire or not, if it was they were more likely to be studied then as there was more easy access to the species in those areas by the victorians who wanted to study them.