New land snail species discovered in Son Doong cave

The new species of snail has been given the scientific name Calybium folded Hoang et al., 2025, based on the characteristic of ridges appearing on the top edge in the mouth of the shell (in Latin: plicatus means ridge, fold). The specimen was discovered at the Ho Sut 1 location of Son Doong cave, in Phong Nha-Ke Bang National Park, Quang Binh province.

This is the second species of the genus (genus) of land snails Calybium Morlet, 1892 (Gastropoda: Helicinidae) was discovered in the world and was the first time recorded for the Vietnamese fauna.

The discovery confirms that Vietnam is a country with high biodiversity in the world, especially in forest ecosystems on limestone mountains and caves.

This is the result of a biodiversity research project on the Son Doong cave system conducted by a group of scientists from the University of Natural Sciences, Hanoi National University and the Vietnam Museum of Nature since 2022. to 2024. The new species has been published in the journal Ruthenica, Russian Malacological Journal on January 2. The research team proposed to name this new species “Son Doong cone snail”.