Lymnaea cailliaudi 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....

, 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 mollusc in the family

Family (biology)

In biological classification, family is* a taxonomic rank. Other well-known ranks are life, domain, kingdom, phylum, class, order, genus, and species, with family fitting between order and genus. As for the other well-known ranks, there is the option of an immediately lower rank, indicated by the...

 Lymnaeidae

Lymnaeidae

Lymnaeidae is a taxonomic family of small to large air-breathing freshwater snails, aquatic pulmonate gastropod mollusks, that belong to the clade Hygrophila....

.

Distribution

Lymnaea cailliaudi lives in east Africa

East Africa

East Africa or Eastern Africa is the easterly region of the African continent, variably defined by geography or geopolitics. In the UN scheme of geographic regions, 19 territories constitute Eastern Africa:...

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In Egypt it has been detected in water bodies of the Nile Delta

Nile Delta

The Nile Delta is the delta formed in Northern Egypt where the Nile River spreads out and drains into the Mediterranean Sea. It is one of the world's largest river deltas—from Alexandria in the west to Port Said in the east, it covers some 240 km of Mediterranean coastline—and is a rich...

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Habitat

Lymnaea cailliaudi prefer clear, slow-running water with low salinity and abundant vegetation.

Life cycle

The snail population is low in the summer months due to high temperatures, and increases gradually to reach its maximum in spring when the temperature is mild and vegetation flourishes.

Parasites

Lymnaea cailliaudi has been found to be an intermediate host

Intermediate host

A secondary host or intermediate host is a host that harbors the parasite only for a short transition period, during which some developmental stage is completed. For trypanosomes, the cause of sleeping sickness, humans are the primary host, while the tsetse fly is the secondary host...

 of both Fasciola hepatica

Fasciola hepatica

Fasciola hepatica, also known as the common liver fluke or sheep liver fluke, is a parasitic flatworm of the class Trematoda, phylum Platyhelminthes that infects the livers of various mammals, including humans. The disease caused by the fluke is called fascioliasis . F...

and Fasciola gigantica

Fasciola gigantica

Fasciola gigantica is a parasitic flatworm of the class Trematoda, which causes tropical fascioliasis. It is regarded as one of the most important single platyhelminth infections of ruminants in Asia and Africa...

. Overall, rates of snail infection vary between 10% and 40%. The highest infection rate was found to be in summer and this may be a factor responsible for lowering snail density in this season.