Achatinella lila is a species

Species

In biology, a species is one of the basic units of biological classification and a taxonomic rank. A species is often defined as a group of organisms capable of interbreeding and producing fertile offspring. While in many cases this definition is adequate, more precise or differing measures are...

 of air-breathing land snail

Snail

Snail is a common name applied to most of the members of the molluscan class Gastropoda that have coiled shells in the adult stage. When the word is used in its most general sense, it includes sea snails, land snails and freshwater snails. The word snail without any qualifier is however more often...

, a terrestrial

Terrestrial animal

Terrestrial animals are animals that live predominantly or entirely on land , as compared with aquatic animals, which live predominantly or entirely in the water , or amphibians, which rely on a combination of aquatic and terrestrial habitats...

 pulmonate gastropod mollusk in the family Achatinellidae

Achatinellidae

Achatinellidae is a family of tropical air-breathing land snails, terrestrial pulmonate gastropod mollusks in the superfamily Achatinelloidea.- Taxonomy :...

. This species is endemic to the Hawaii

Hawaii

Hawaii is the newest of the 50 U.S. states , and is the only U.S. state made up entirely of islands. It is the northernmost island group in Polynesia, occupying most of an archipelago in the central Pacific Ocean, southwest of the continental United States, southeast of Japan, and northeast of...

, the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

.

Shell description

Its shells

Gastropod shell

The gastropod shell is a shell which is part of the body of a gastropod or snail, one kind of mollusc. The gastropod shell is an external skeleton or exoskeleton, which serves not only for muscle attachment, but also for protection from predators and from mechanical damage...

 are glossy, colorful yellow and green.

The shell is sinistral, ovate-conic, thin but strong, nearly smooth, brilliantly glossy. The shell has 5.5 whorls. The embryonic whorls are burnt sienna brown (weathering to
whitish in adult shells), or sometimes there is a light median zone. The last whorl

Body whorl

Body whorl is part of the morphology of a coiled gastropod mollusk.- In gastropods :In gastropods, the body whorl, or last whorl, is the most recently-formed and largest whorl of a spiral or helical shell, terminating in the aperture...

 has either a uniform blackish chestnut, or a chestnut peripheral band and baso-columellar patch on a yellow ground, or like the last but with a green band midway between periphery and suture, or with sutural and peripheral bands and a baso-columellar patch of yellow on a chestnut ground. There are also a few specimens more or less intermediate between these patterns.

The aperture

Aperture (mollusc)

The aperture is an opening in certain kinds of mollusc shells: it is the main opening of the shell, where part of the body of the animal emerges for locomotion, feeding, etc....

is moderately oblique, and colored white or faintly lilac within. The peristome is acute, and slightly or not thickened within. The columellar fold is strong, and is colored purple or white.

The height of the shell is 17.0 mm. The width of the shell is 11.0 mm.