Biomphalaria glabrata

Biomphalaria glabrata
An albino individual of Biomphalaria glabrata. (All snails in the family Planorbidae have the red oxygen transport pigment hemoglobin, but this is especially apparent in albino animals.)
Scientific classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Mollusca
Class: Gastropoda
Subclass: Heterobranchia
Superorder: Hygrophila
Family: Planorbidae
Genus: Biomphalaria
Species:
B. glabrata
Binomial name
Biomphalaria glabrata
(Say, 1818)
Synonyms
  • Planorbis glabratus Say, 1818
  • Australorbis glabratus (Say, 1818)
  • Taphius glabratus (Say, 1818)
  • Planorbis guadaloupensis Sowerby
  • Planorbis ferrugineus Spix, 1827
  • Planorbis olivaceus Spix, 1827
  • Planorbis nigricans Spix, 1827
  • Planorbis albescens Spix, 1827
  • Planorbis viridis Spix, 1827
  • Planorbis lugubris J. A. Wagner, 1827

Biomphalaria glabrata is a species of air-breathing freshwater snail, an aquatic pulmonate gastropod mollusk in the family Planorbidae, the ram's horn snails.

Biomphalaria glabrata is an intermediate snail host for the trematode Schistosoma mansoni, which is one of the main schistosomes that infect humans. This snail is a medically important pest, because of transferring the disease intestinal schistosomiasis, the most widespread of all types of schistosomiasis.

The parasite Schistosoma mansoni (which these snails and other Biomphalaria snails carry) infects about 83.31 million people worldwide.

Biomphalaria glabrata/Schistosoma mansoni provides a useful model system for investigating the intimate interactions between host and parasite. There is a great deal of information available about this snail, because it has been, and continues to be, under intensive study by many malacologists, parasitologists and other researchers, on account of its medical significance.

The shell of this species, like all planorbids, is sinistral in coiling, but it is carried upside down, and thus it appears to be dextral.

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