Sinoennea fengshiyangi Xiang, He, Lu & Chen, 2025

Xiang, Hong Quan, Lu, Yi Zhi, He, Yue Ming & Chen, Hui, 2025, Two new species of land snails (Mollusca: Gastropoda) from China, Ecologica Montenegrina 88, pp. 215-221 : 216-217

Sinoennea fengshiyangi Xiang, He, Lu & Chen , sp. nov.

https://zoobank.org/ urn:lsid:zoobank.org:act:B9E09A49-2895-43F1-B07B-6E1DEFC915BC

Fig. 1 A–J

Material examined. Holotype: NCUXLB 25040101, shell height 7.0 mm (a broken shell) ( Fig. 1 A– E ). Yuanjiang County [元江县], Yuxi City [玉※市], Yunnan Province, China, 23.57°N, 102.05°E, April 2025, collected by Yue-Ming He and Hong-Quan Xiang.

Paratypes: 2 specimens (entire shells) ( Fig. 1 F–I ), NCUXLB 25040102, 03, shell height 6.8, 6.9 mm, April 2025, locality and habitat same as holotype.

Diagnosis. Shell small, cylindrical, with oval aperture, parietal callus smeared onto last whorl, four apertural barriers, umbilicus narrow.

Description. Shell small, cylindrical, apex domed, colourless, semi-transparent, consisting of 10–10.5 whorls. Protoconch consisting of 1.5–2 whorls,, glossy, almost smooth. shell surface with many weak ribs, 14–16 ribs per mm, ribs rather regularly spaced, individual ribs slightly curved. Ribs gradually become weaker (surface becomes smoother) towards the aperture, and as a result the surface of the last ca. 3 whorls is nearly smooth, glossy. Suture deep, whorls bulging. With oval aperture, umbilicus closed. Parietal callus not obvious, smeared onto preceding whorl. Apertural dentition 4-fold. Parietal lamella moderately developed, nearly straight. Its outer part is slightly bent towards the parietal denticle, its inner part slightly bent towards the columella. Sinulus oval and opens laterally. Palatal wall with two blunt, on the upper side not well-developed denticles, on the bottom side well-developed denticles that are situated close to each other. Columellar lamella ( Fig. 1J ) blunt, triangular, situated relatively deep. Outer lip and basal lip strongly thickened and expanded, reflected.

Differential diagnosis. Although Sinoennea fengshiyangi sp. nov. shares characteristics of Parasionennea Chen and Páll-Gergely, 2020 (e.g., a poorly developed parietal callus smeared onto the preceding whorl) ( Páll-Gergely et al. 2020), its oval aperture shape differs distinctly from the triangular aperture of Parasionennea species. Therefore, we classify it within Sinoennea . The new species is similar only to S. blanfordiana (Godwin-Austen, 1872) and S. fuchsi (Gredler, 1885) due to their similar shell shape (see Yen 1939, Páll-Gergely et al. 2020), but it can be easily distinguished from these two species by its shell surface with many weak ribs, a greater number of whorls, and the less obvious parietal callus.

Etymology. The species is named after Shi-Yang Feng, a Chinese land snail enthusiast, who helped with our survey. We suggest the Chinese common name as "ñ氏华弯Dz".

Distribution and ecology. The species primarily inhabits the cactus forests in the dry and hot river valleys of Yuanjiang County ( Fig. 3 D ). Due to the extremely arid and hot conditions of the habitat, the roots of the cacti provide a relatively humid environment that helps the species survive in such a dry setting. In addition, the relatively humid environment attracts some other micro snails (such as species from the Diplommatinidae and Pupillidae families), providing food for this species.

Figures

Figure 1. (A–E) holotype, Sinoennea fengshiyangi sp. nov. (F–I) paratype, Scale bars = 2 mm. (J) Inner structure.

Figure 3. (A) Type locality of Arinia zangke sp. nov. (B, C) Living specimens of Arinia zangke sp. nov. on the fallen leaves. (D) Type locality of Sinoennea fengshiyangi sp. nov.