Protists and other organisms on a minute snail periostracum

Abstract

Since the foundation of the Malacological Center in 1980, Universidad Centro Americana (UCA), Managua-Nicaragua, has been monitoring and collecting the marine, terrestrial, fluvial and lake mollusk population of the country. Many specimens have been photographed by Scanning Electronic Microscope (SEM), and in one of these, observation of the hairy periostracum reveals a seemingly thriving population of minute protists in possible symbiosis with their host. Adequate magnification and comparison with previous studies allowed the determination of these hosts as diatoms, testaceous amoebae, yeast, phacus, spores and other undetermined organisms which occur in tropical forests on rocks, trees and leaves. Here illustrated are diatoms and other organisms detected for the first time on the periostracum of a tropical rainforest mollusk.