Scientists have key sixbizarre unexampled speciesof estate snails that have “ scaly ” plate and Leslie Townes Hope that study them will help them bump out on the button how this unusual feature physical body .
The snails are absolutely lilliputian , valuate just a couple of mm in length . They belong to to the genusGeorissa , and were found in Borneo by a team head by Mohd Zacaery Khalik from the Naturalis Biodiversity Center in the Netherlands . Their findings are print in the journalZooKeys .
“ The put out article is the first part of our field of study on this group of snail , ” Khalik told IFLScience . “ Before we do a detailed investigation on these alone snails , we wanted to discover out how the species within this genus are relate to one another . ”
Scaly snail were first discovered all the room back in 1889 , but their spiral shells remain a bit of a mystery . Other species in the genus do not have this feature , which give these mollusc a very alone coming into court .
The squad in this paper studied microsnails in the region from 2015 to 2017 to seek to act out how these shell evolved , using DNA data point and 3D modeling , with the assistance of X - ray scanning . This permit them to peek inside the shell and hit the books them in ripe detail .
Here ’s a TV showing 3-D models of the snail , and the scientist out in the theatre collecting them .
“ This article is the first step towards our study on the evolutionary chronicle of this minutely - formed group of gastropods , ” said Khalik . “ As most of the works are in advancement , we have n’t come to any stopping point just yet . ”
Of the six coinage , the researcher found a routine of interesting differences between them . They had unlike patterns and orientations of scales , while the number of scales in total also wide-ranging . cuticle shape and size also differed between the mintage .
Khalik observe that they have n’t encountered any species ofGeorissawith this weighing machine - like feature anywhere in Southeast Asia except Borneo . Thus , they propose these creatures may be indigenous to the region .
So the story of how exactly these microsnails got their scales continue a bit of a mystery . But it ’s pretty awesome these singular , bantam creatures are hang out in Borneo .
