Ivan Nekhaev from Murmansk came to the University museum in November for a two week stay where he examined some of our mollusc collection. He kindly agreed to participate in our Advent blog adventure, and here is what he had to say:

The main goal of my work at the University Museum of Bergen was studying of minute snails of the family Rissoidae (and drinking a couple gallons of coffee as well :-)).

Rissoids, like many gastropod groups, are more diverse in tropical and subtropical waters whereas the number of species reached northern areas in their distribution is remarkably low: within the several hundreds of northern Atlantic rissoid species, slightly more than dozen of species are know from the adjacent part of the Arctic Ocean. Nonetheless, anatomy for the majority of species had never been investigated and hence the taxonomical status and generic position of some Arctic representatives of the family is questionable, while the accurate data on species composition are still absent for many regions of the Eurasian Arctic.

During my work with the collections of the University Museum I investigated morphology of ten Scandinavian and Arctic species. These data will be used in revision of Eurasian Arctic rissoids and provide me with a good material for the further investigations in “southern” rissoidean snails.

-Ivan