by
Laura Geggel, Staff Writer | November 02, 2015 03:45pm
ET
An
itsy-bitsy mollusk in Borneo is the new record holder for the world's smallest
known snail, a new study finds.
Its
shiny, translucent, white shell has an average height of 0.027 inches (0.7 millimeters),
breaking the previously held record by about a tenth of a millimeter. The
former champion — the Chinese snail Angustopila dominikae —is the world's second-smallest
snail, with an average shell height of 0.033 inches (0.86 mm), the researchers
said.
Dutch
and Malaysian researchers named the newfound snail Acmella nana; its
species name (nana) is a reference to the Latin nanus, or
"dwarf." Acmella nana is so small that the researchers
couldn't see it in the wild without a microscope.
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