Snails have interesting toothed tongues called ‘radula’ for feeding and licking surfaces, including grinding rocks. Although these teeth are quite hard, they wear out quickly as they are used to pierce materials and surfaces during their lifetime. The worn-out teeth of the snails are replaced by new ones every day.
In many parts of the world, there are more than 80,000 species of snails on land and in water, and indirectly a variety of toothed tongue structures. These set of teeth in their flexible bodies can be quite different between snail species and these differences are important in their identification. A new snail species has been discovered in a cave that is home to snail species.
This tooth structure was encountered for the first time.
Scientists have discovered a new species of snail in caves in Spain’s Iberian Peninsula, which house 57 different snail species. The newly discovered snail could be identified thanks to its tooth structure. The detection of a new snail species was announced in an article published in the journal Organismal Diversity and Evolution. Analyzing the genetics of snails, scientist Jeannette Knebühler and her colleagues stated that the new species belongs to a brand new genus they call Iberozospeum.
The tooth structure of a newly discovered snail reveals a new species. Unlike the snails, which have small but numerous teeth in each row, the two-pronged teeth of the new species attract attention. “This ‘radula’ is used to sift through cave mud to reach food particles,” said Jochum, one of the researchers. Zoologist Wencke Krings of the University of Hamburg stated that the teeth of species in some habitats differ significantly from others, and this is related to continuous food sources.
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