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Freshwater snails are gastropod mollusks that live in fresh water. There are many different families. There are many different families. They are found throughout the world in various habitats, ranging from ephemeral pools to the largest lakes, and from small seeps and springs to major rivers.
Determining whether some gastropods should be called sea snails is not always easy. Some species that live in brackish water (such as certain neritids) can be listed as either freshwater snails or marine snails, and some species that live at or just above the high tide level (for example, species in the genus Truncatella) are sometimes considered to be sea snails and sometimes listed as land ...
Snails can be found in a very wide range of environments, including ditches, deserts, and the abyssal depths of the sea. Although land snails may be more familiar to laymen, marine snails constitute the majority of snail species, and have much greater diversity and a greater biomass. Numerous kinds of snail can also be found in fresh water.
Some of the more familiar and better-known gastropods are terrestrial gastropods (the land snails and slugs). Some live in fresh water, but most named species of gastropods live in a marine environment. Gastropods have a worldwide distribution, from the near Arctic and Antarctic zones to the tropics. They have become adapted to almost every ...
The two major classes of molluscs have representatives in freshwater: the gastropods (snails) and the bivalves (freshwater mussels and clams.) It appears that the other classes within the Phylum Mollusca -the cephalopods, scaphopods, polyplacophorans, etc. - never made the transition from a fully marine environment to a freshwater environment.
Mudsnails are impressively resilient. A snail can live for 24 hours without water. They can however survive for up to 50 days on a damp surface, [22] giving them ample time to be transferred from one body of water to another on fishing gear. The snails may even survive passing through the digestive systems of fish and birds. [23]
The snails are a unique part of the neuston, organisms which live on or near the surface of the water, because of their relatively large size. They have veliger , or free swimming larvae, but the adults do not swim, and cannot create their rafts, except at the surface where air bubbles are available.
In contrast to many other freshwater snails, the animals tolerate a base-poor acidic environment. Southern European, North African and Middle East representative of the species group can survive exposure due to low water levels, to a certain extent, by forming a protective layer on the underside of the shell.