Elimia livescens, common name

Common name

A common name of a taxon or organism is a name in general use within a community; it is often contrasted with the scientific name for the same organism...

 the liver elimia, 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 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....

 with an operculum

Operculum (gastropod)

The operculum, meaning little lid, is a corneous or calcareous anatomical structure which exists in many groups of sea snails and freshwater snails, and also in a few groups of land snails...

, 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...

 gastropod mollusk in the family Pleuroceridae

Pleuroceridae

Pleuroceridae, common name pleurocerids, is a family of small to medium-sized freshwater snails, aquatic gilled gastropod mollusks in the superfamily Cerithioidea.These snails have an operculum and typically a robust high-spired shell....

.

Shell description

The height of the shell

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...

 of this species can be as large as 20 mm.

Distribution

Elimia livescens is native to the United States

United States

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

. It occurs in the Saint Lawrence River

Saint Lawrence River

The Saint Lawrence is a large river flowing approximately from southwest to northeast in the middle latitudes of North America, connecting the Great Lakes with the Atlantic Ocean. It is the primary drainage conveyor of the Great Lakes Basin...

 drainage from Great Lake to Lake Champlain

Lake Champlain

Lake Champlain is a natural, freshwater lake in North America, located mainly within the borders of the United States but partially situated across the Canada—United States border in the Canadian province of Quebec.The New York portion of the Champlain Valley includes the eastern portions of...

; in tributaries of the Ohio River

Ohio River

The Ohio River is the largest tributary, by volume, of the Mississippi River. At the confluence, the Ohio is even bigger than the Mississippi and, thus, is hydrologically the main stream of the whole river system, including the Allegheny River further upstream...

 east of the Scioto River

Scioto River

The Scioto River is a river in central and southern Ohio more than 231 miles in length. It rises in Auglaize County in west central Ohio, flows through Columbus, Ohio, where it collects its largest tributary, the Olentangy River, and meets the Ohio River at Portsmouth...

 in Ohio; and in the Wabash River

Wabash River

The Wabash River is a river in the Midwestern United States that flows southwest from northwest Ohio near Fort Recovery across northern Indiana to southern Illinois, where it forms the Illinois-Indiana border before draining into the Ohio River, of which it is the largest northern tributary...

, west to the Illinois River

Illinois River

The Illinois River is a principal tributary of the Mississippi River, approximately long, in the State of Illinois. The river drains a large section of central Illinois, with a drainage basin of . This river was important among Native Americans and early French traders as the principal water route...

.

The nonindigenous distribution of Elimia livescens includes the lower Hudson River

Hudson River

The Hudson is a river that flows from north to south through eastern New York. The highest official source is at Lake Tear of the Clouds, on the slopes of Mount Marcy in the Adirondack Mountains. The river itself officially begins in Henderson Lake in Newcomb, New York...

 drainage. It migrated to the Hudson River via the Erie Canal

Erie Canal

The Erie Canal is a waterway in New York that runs about from Albany, New York, on the Hudson River to Buffalo, New York, at Lake Erie, completing a navigable water route from the Atlantic Ocean to the Great Lakes. The canal contains 36 locks and encompasses a total elevation differential of...

. The impact of this introduction is unknown.

Habitat

This snail is found in freshwater rivers and streams, on rock shoals and gravel bars.

Life cycle

The sexes are separate. Eggs are usually laid in the spring. The snails often reach sexual maturity in a year, and can live for 5 years.

Further reading

• Kanter M., Mott J., Ohashi N., Fried B., Reed S., Lin Y. & Rikihisa Y. (2000). "Analysis of 16S rRNA and 51-kilodalton antigen gene and transmission in mice of Ehrlichia risticii in virgulate trematodes from Elimia livescens snails in Ohio". J. Clin. Microbiol. 38: 3349-3358.