Trochulus hispidus, also known as Trichia hispida, 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 "hairy snail", 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 Hygromiidae

Hygromiidae

Hygromiidae is a taxonomic family of small to medium-sized air-breathing land snails, terrestrial pulmonate gastropod mollusks in the superfamily Helicoidea.-Anatomy:...

.

Anatomy

This species of snail creates and uses love darts during mating. The love dart of this species is thorn

Thorns, spines, and prickles

In botanical morphology, thorns, spines, and prickles are hard structures with sharp, or at least pointed, ends. In spite of this common feature, they differ in their growth and development on the plant; they are modified versions of different plant organs, stems, stipules, leaf veins, or hairs...

-shaped.

Distribution

This species occurs in a number of Europe

Europe

Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

an countries and islands including:

• Czech Republic
• Netherlands
• Poland
• Slovakia
• The British Isles: Great Britain and Ireland
• and others

Further reading

• Dépraz A., Hausser J, & Pfenninger M. (21 July) 2009. A species delimitation approach in the Trochulus sericeus/hispidus complex reveals two cryptic species within a sharp contact zone. BMC Evolutionary Biology 2009, 9:171.