Bythinella cf. Bythinella utriculus (Paladilhe, 1874)
« Shell with almost no umbilical cleft, ovoid-obese, horny, fairly strong, covered with a greenish or rust-colored, opaque, relatively robust coating. Spire obese, poorly developed, with an obtuse apex; whorls 3½ to 4, fairly convex, rapidly growing, especially from the third one, separated by a rather deep suture; the two first whorls are convex and flattened; penultimate whorl elegantly swollen, far exceeding in front view the height of the first two combined; last whorl large, dilated on the side of the aperture, towards which it rises a little, obtusely canaliculated towards the suture; labial margin roughly parallel to the axis of the shell. Aperture oblique, rounded, slightly oval, a little projecting and faintly angular outside at its upper insertion. Peristome continuous, thin, straight, slightly flared outside; outer edge obliquely arched, a little stretched at its junction with the columellar edge, which is clearly reflected on the umbilical cleft, almost entirely covering the latter. » – A. Paladilhe: “Monographie du nouveau genre Peringia suivie de descriptions d’espèces nouvelles de Paludinidées françaises”, Annales des Sciences Naturelles (Zoologie et Paléontologie) ser. 6, 1(2), Paris 1874, p.29.
Specimen from a well-spring near the church at Ginoles, far western Aude. Altitude ≈ 310m. The species, whatsoever, lives here in syntopy with Bythinella ginolensis Fagot, 1881. Size: 3,23mm.
Paladilhe described his Bythinella utriculus after a subadult specimen: « Height, 2¼millim.; diameter, 1½millil. » – In the square, the drawing provided in the monography, Plate III.
Compared to tejedoi, the radial sculpture becomes progressively orthocline in the last whorls, and not opisthocline as in the latter. Compared to ginolensis, the apex is much larger in diameter, and the whole shell is less slender in shape.
The whorls are less convex in ginolensis.