THE SURVEY OF GASTROPOD MOLLUSKS WITH RESPECT TO ECOLOGICAL HABITAT IN THE AURANGABAD DISTRICT (MS), INDIA

A survey of freshwater bodies at various locations in Aurangabad city and nearby places was carried out to have information on gastropod mollusks dwelling there in. It was observed that few spots had no the snail population. Specifically snails preferred shallow water, lentic (stagnant water) and lotic (shallow running water) habitats, whereas land slug was available in moist soil of agriculture farms. In preliminary survey eight species of Gastropod mollusks were recorded from these diverse habitats. All the species were identified with taxonomic classification by experts of Zoological Survey of India (ZSI) at Pune. The collected species of freshwater habitat are Lymnea accuminata, and L. luteola (Lamarck-1822), Bellamya bengalensis and B. dissimilis (Lamarck, 1822), Semperula maculate (Templeten,1858), Tarebia lineate(Grey,1828),Indoplanorbis exutus (Deshayes,1854) are of lotic habitat and land slug Laevicaulis alte (Ferusae, 1821),Achatina fulica(bowdich,1822) giant snail . are terrestrial ones Most of the snails are widely distributed in various aquatic habitats with wide range of ecological parameters tolerance. However, the few species L. accuminata, L. leutola, and Taerbia lineate were found only in stagnant waters, i.e lentic habitat These gastropod snails are representatives of diverse freshwater ecological habitats.