This may be the world’s tiniest snail

A teeny, tiny shell that turned up in a soil sample from China may belong to one of the world’s smallest land snails, researchers report September 28 in ZooKeys. 

Scientists surveying China’s Guangxi region for small mollusks found seven new species of “microsnails,” which have shells smaller than 5 millimeters. Among these, several small gray shells measured below a millimeter in height, but one shell stood out — at a mere 0.86 millimeters tall.

At that size, it could very well be home to the smallest known snail in the world. Though the scientists did not find any live specimens (a common problem when hunting for small mollusks), they hypothesize that the shell belongs to a novel species, dubbed Angustopila dominkae.