Habitat

The Vertigo pygmaea is a terrestrial land snail that can be found in a wide range of environments.  This snail can live in areas with varied humidity from a humid marsh to a dry grassland.  To find one of these animals the best place to look would be on or under rocks, the bottom of tall grass blades or among plant debris. 

Geographically the Vertigo Pygmaea can be found in the northern part of the Midwest in the united states as well as many countries in northern and central Asia.  The gastropod can also be found in the middle countries of Europe which is the suspected origin of this organism.

There are many other organisms that could potentially live in the same habitat than the Vertigo pygmaea such as all of the other animals in the Vertigo genus as well as other gastropods.  Most notably there would be many predators for the species in this environment such as a wide variety of birds and many mammals. See the Interaction section for more on this.

The pygmaea plays an important role in the habitat that they live in.  Along with being food for many species they themselves eat on the dead plant material and algae.  By doing this they are recycling plant material into usable organic matter for many plant species. See Nutrition section.

It was also shown in an experament in southern Sweeden that the Vertigo Pygmaea thrived in calcium rich areas and they had little to no growth in calcium poor regions. (Wäreborn, et al 1969)

Information on Habitat was cited from (Francisco, et al 2011)

Next learn about how they adapt to their surroundings in the Adaption section.

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