Biomphalaria smithi 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 freshwater snail

Freshwater snail

A freshwater snail is one kind of freshwater mollusc, the other kind being freshwater clams and mussels, i.e. freshwater bivalves. Specifically a freshwater snail is a gastropod that lives in a watery non-marine habitat. The majority of freshwater gastropods have a shell, with very few exceptions....

, an aquatic

Aquatic animal

An aquatic animal is an animal, either vertebrate or invertebrate, which lives in water for most or all of its life. It may breathe air or extract its oxygen from that dissolved in water through specialised organs called gills, or directly through its skin. Natural environments and the animals that...

 pulmonate gastropod mollusk in the family

Family

In human context, a family is a group of people affiliated by consanguinity, affinity, or co-residence. In most societies it is the principal institution for the socialization of children...

 Planorbidae, the ram's horn snails.

Biomphalaria smithi is the type species of the genus Biomphalaria. The type material is stored in the Natural History Museum

Natural History Museum

The Natural History Museum is one of three large museums on Exhibition Road, South Kensington, London, England . Its main frontage is on Cromwell Road...

.

Distribution

The type locality is the Lake Albert, Uganda.

Shell description

The width of the shell is from 7.5 mm to 9.5. The height of the shell is 4 mm. The height of the aperture is 5 mm. The width of the aperture is 4.5 mm.

Phylogeny

A cladogram

Cladogram

A cladogram is a diagram used in cladistics which shows ancestral relations between organisms, to represent the evolutionary tree of life. Although traditionally such cladograms were generated largely on the basis of morphological characters, DNA and RNA sequencing data and computational...

 showing phylogenic relations of species in the genus Biomphalaria:

Further reading

• Baker F. C. (1945) The molluscan family Planorbidae. Urbana, The University of Illinois Press, page 89