Discus macclintocki

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This snail is limited to patches of algific talus slope habitat. It is a relict species from the last ice age. Much of its remaining habitat is located on the Driftless Area National Wildlife Refuge in Iowa. Known from fossil evidence about 400,000 years old, it is one of many glacial relict species that remain in the Driftless Area, a glacier-eroded plateau that now makes up parts of Iowa, Illinois, Minnesota, and Wisconsin. Much of the area was covered by glaciers about 500,000 years ago, while parts of the Driftless Area were unglaciated.

The algific talus slope habitat that harbors the snail is a landscape cooled by air and water emerging from masses of subterranean ice. The ground temperature rarely exceeds 50 °F even in summer. Here the snail feeds on leaf litter from trees (mainly birch, maple and dogwood) and shrubs. During the winter, it burrows underground and becomes dormant. It breeds from March to August, laying two to six eggs in the litter. Juveniles emerge in about 28 days. The life span of the snail is 5 to 7 years.^[3] The adult is about 5-8 millimeters wide,^[4] with a brownish or greenish shell