Image Usage Information
Family: Pristilomatidae
Common name: Shrew Supercoil
Discovery: Hubricht, 1963
Identification
Width: 3.5-4.5 mm
Height: 2-2.5 mm
Whorls: 5+
Paravitrea blarina is a white-colored animal with a shiny, dome-shaped, yellowish shell. The thin-lipped aperture is equally as high as it is wide. Irregularly spaced radial striae and growth wrinkles are seen on the top of the shell but grow much fainter on the base. The open umbilicus is deep and well-like, with a diameter that is relatively large in comparison with most other species in the genus; it is about one-fifth the diameter of the shell. The shell of P. blarina lacks teeth at any stage of growth.
Ecology
This animal likes to burrow in the lower layers of decaying leaf litter on hillsides (Hubricht, 1963; 1985). It has been found under leaf litter inside burrows created by shrews, the source of its common name.
Taxonomy
There are no synonyms.
Distribution
Paravitrea blarina is known only from a handful of counties in Virginia, Tennessee, and Kentucky. In Virginia it is reported only from Lee County.
Conservation
NatureServe Global Rank: G3
NatureServe State Rank: S1
Virginia’s wildlife action plan: Tier II
