Thiara scabra and Haita acuta snail shell thickness at first body whorl
Description
Thiara scabra and Haita acuta snail shell thickness at first body whorl of empty and clean snail shells, using SEM (HRSEM, Gemini 300, Zeiss).
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Snails were collected from fishponds in Emek HaMa’ayanot, Northern Israel, namely, from the Tirat Zvi farm (N 32.400784, E 35.530227), the Ein HaNaziv farm (N 32.471151, E 35.507449), and a drainage trench near Kibbutz Shlukhot (N 32.476060, E 35.486404), based on mapping from a previous study (Moscovitz et al., 2024). A uniform shell width of 4-6 mm at the snail widest point in the shell was determined by using a set of sieves, one with holes of 6 mm and the second of 4 mm, thus snails which were trapped between them after rigorous washing were used for the experiment, as previously described (Savaya-Alkalay et al., 2018; Savaya et al., 2020). Thirty empty snail shells of size grade 4-6 mm for each of the two species (30 shells of Thiata scabra and 30 shells of Haita acuta) were washed with soap and water to remove possible soft-tissue remnants and then air-dried. The empty shells were sliced longitudinally using a razor. The shell slice was attached, with the hollowed side facing up, to a scanning electron microscopy (SEM) plate using double-sided carbon tape. Shell thickness was measured twice in the same location, i.e., on the left side of the sliced shell on the first shell whorl, using SEM (HRSEM, Gemini 300, Zeiss), and then averaged for a shell thickness for each snail (total of 60 measurements per species).
Institutions
- Ben-Gurion University of the NegevSouthern District, Beersheba