Nutrition

    Helisoma pilsbryi are a largely vegetal species. They have a rounded gizzard and salivary glands that are jointed behind in their digestive tract. They possess lateral teeth which are quadrate radula teeth. Their radula is used for scraping algae off of benthic surfaces in their lake/pond habitat.

                 This picture labels the many parts of the snail. It shows a close up of its feeding parts, the radula.

     Planorbids in general are good hosts for parasitic flukes. At a site at Chetek Lake in Barren Co., WI, 8 specimens were found to have cercariae of these parasites, mainly affecting their liver and ovitestis. Planorbella is the first intermediate host, originally infected by the miracidia.

     Planorbella are found to be the first intermediate hosts of Ribeiroia ondatrae. This has found to be an indicator of malformations in amphibians. A change in food source, along with other factors has been found to be the disturbance to these animals and the reason of their common epidemic diseases (Johnson 2004).

 

Go back to the home page, or learn about the reproduction of the rams-horn snail.