New Micro Snail Found In The Philippines

 

Philippines – Recently, Filipino scientists or a team of Filipino scientists have found a subspecies or a species of microsnail called “Hypselostoma latispira masungiensis” at Masungi Georeserve on Baras Rizal Philippines. The species were found on a limestone boulder where according to information about snails were snails usually have habitat.

 

According to the Filipino scientists, what they found at Baras Rizal was somewhat similar to snails in Baguio city Philippines with 99.8 % genetically similar. The one in Baguio city have much smaller shell size and have only four teeth than what they found in Rizal with have five teeth.

 

The microsnail is only a size of an ant,the news said.

 

“Filipino scientists have discovered a new subspecies of the microsnail, named Hypselostoma latispia masungiensis, at the Masungi Georeserve in Rizal…….. "The discovery of the new subspecies highlights the importance of Masungi and other karst ecosystems as areas of high conservation value," the Masungi Georeserve Foundation said in a statement. A team of scientists from the University of the Philippines-Los Baños first found the microsnail in 2017, noting its similarity to the H. latispira in Baguio City. Microsnails have shells measuring less than 5 millimeters, or about the size of an ant….. After three years of study and analyses, the researchers found that the snails from Baguio and Rizal differed in size but had 99.8-percent genetic similarity. The snail in Baguio has a smaller shell size and four apertural teeth inside while the new subspecies has five teeth.” (CNN Philippines)

Their discovery just recently published in the Philippine Journal of Systematic Biology which brought a stress to need to protect the Masungi Georeserve from quarrying and land traffic so that the snails will not be extinct.

The main  point : A new mini or micro species of snails have been found on georeserve or at Masungi Georeserve in Rizal Philippines called Hypselostoma latispira masungiensis.

The Micro Snail (image from CNN Philippines website)