Cernuella virgata (Da Costa, 1778)

Plazzi, Federico & Pedroni, Guido, 2023, Biodiversity of extant snails (Gastropoda, Mollusca) in the Pliocene Mountain Spur Natural Reserve (Northern Apennine, Italy), Biodiversity Data Journal 11, pp. 95688-95688 : 95688

Cernuella virgata (Da Costa, 1778)

Materials

Type status: Other material. Occurrence : recordedBy: Pedroni ; individualCount: 1; occurrenceID: 3003A40D-0E5C-50E9-87AE-6EEB0E3252FF; Location : country: Italy; locality: Fosso Raibano , Raibano Valley (3), PMS, Setta Valley ; verbatimElevation: 331 m; Identification : identifiedBy: Pedroni; identificationQualifier: cf. virgata; Event: eventDate: 12.IX.2020

Notes

Shell with 5-7 coils, variable in colour and shape, with or without bands; umbilicus open; peristome brown in adults. The specimen was collected along the path in the underbrush through the small Raibano Valley, at the surface. The species inhabits dry, open places: arid meadows, ruderal habitats, hedgerows and grassland ( Kerney and Cameron 1979). Cernuella virgata also lives on dunes ( Kerney and Cameron 1979): in Romagna, specimens were collected on sandy dunes in the Rimini (Italy) area ( Cossignani and Cossignani 1995). This species can live at roadsides, in harvested fields and railways; it ascends vertical walls and attaches to tall plants to escape bottom heat ( Welter-Schultes 2012). In Italy, this taxon is highly polymorphic, both in terms of shell structure and genital morphology, so that doubt was cast whether it is a single species or a species complex ( Boato et al. 1984).