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Larry Watrous |
Punctum
minutissimum (I. Lea, 1841)
small spot
Family Punctidae
Order Stylommatophora
This
snail’s common name, “small spot,” is apt.
It is among the smallest of Pennsylvania’s snails, though
it is also relatively widespread in forests.
The shell
of the small spot is little more than a millimeter wide and
three-quarters of a millimeter tall
(Pilsbry,
1948). Its whorls are sculptured with fine
ridges, giving it a “neat” appearance. Its umbilicus
is approximately one-quarter the shell’s width, and
the lip is thin.
The small
spot dwells in forest leaf litter throughout the state of
Pennsylvania and the Eastern United States (Hubricht,
1985; Pilsbry,
1948), but is often overlooked due to its small
size. Morse (in Pilsbry,
1948) says that this snail prefers the rotten bark
of American beech trees and is often found in large fungi
including Polyporus spp. and Boletus spp. The
small spot appears to be finely attuned to calcium available
in the leaf litter, as population sizes closely track this
nutrient (Hotopp,
2002).
Ken Hotopp,
10/27/05
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