The geographical distribution of Monacha crispulata (Mousson, 1861)

Monacha crispulata was first described as Helix crispulata from “the environments of Jerusalem” (Mousson, 1861). Among Israel’s land snails it is the only one known to have rather long, curved hairs on the shell surface. These horny hairs often disappear in worn, adult shells leaving scars which are easily seen through a magnifying glass. Hesse (1910) anatomically examined a single specimen from Beyrut and demonstrated that it typically belongs to the genus Theba Risso, 1826, and that it is closely related to such species as T. obstructa Férussac, 1821, and T. syriaca (Ehrenberg, 1831). All these were later placed in the genus Monacha Fitzinger, 1833.