Gyraulus is a genus of small, mostly air-breathing, freshwater snails, aquatic pulmonate gastropod mollusks in the family Planorbidae, the ram's horn snails. The genus Gyraulus is known from the Early Cretaceous to the present. Fossils attributed to Gyraulus sp. have been found in the lakebottom sediments of the Yixian Formation in China, dating to 125 million years ago. The minute species Gyraulus crista, although technically a pulmonate gastropod, does not use air for respiration, but instead has a mantle cavity which has much water.

Distribution

The distribution of this genus is Holarctic.

Habitat

These snail snails live on water plants in freshwater.

Shell description

Shell of the species within this genus are small, and are mostly almost planispiral in their coiling.

Species

Species within the genus Gyraulus include: subgenus Armiger W. Hartmann, 1843 subgenus Carinogyraulus Polinski, 1929: represented as Gyraulus subgenus Gyraulus Charpentier, 1837 subgenus Lamorbis Starobogatov, 1967: represented as Gyraulis subgenus Nautilinus Mousson, 1872 subgenus Torquis Dall, 1905 subgenus ?