---
title: "Chinese Mystery Snail"
description: "Margarya chinensis — Outros animais. The Chinese mystery snail, black snail, or trapdoor snail (Margarya chinensis), is a large freshwater snail with gills and an operculum, an aquatic gastropod mollusk in the family Viviparidae."
canonical: https://animalchecklist.com/pt/animal/chinese-mystery-snail
last_updated: 2026-09-20
---

# Chinese Mystery Snail

> Margarya chinensis — Outros animais. The Chinese mystery snail, black snail, or trapdoor snail (Margarya chinensis), is a large freshwater snail with gills and an operculum, an aquatic gastropod mollusk in the family Viviparidae.

- Scientific name: *Margarya chinensis*
- Category: `other` (Outros animais)
- Habitats: `freshwater` (Lagos e rios)
- iNaturalist observations: 10749
- iNaturalist taxon: [1672221](https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/1672221)

## Names

- en: Chinese Mystery Snail
- fr: Vivipare chinoise

## Countries with the most observations

US (4900), CA (1761), KR (67), CN (53), TW (15), BE (3)

## Summary

The Chinese mystery snail, black snail, or trapdoor snail (Margarya chinensis), is a large freshwater snail with gills and an operculum, an aquatic gastropod mollusk in the family Viviparidae. 
The name "trapdoor snail" refers the operculum, an oval corneous plate that most snails in this clade possess. When the soft parts of the snail are fully retracted, the operculum seals the aperture of the shell, providing some protection against drying out and predation.

Text: Wikipedia (en), CC BY-SA 4.0 — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margarya_chinensis

## Photo

![Chinese Mystery Snail](https://animalchecklist.com/img/animals/chinese-mystery-snail/medium.jpg)

Photo: Anne Parsons · CC0 · inaturalist — https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/18364950

## Machine access

`GET https://animalchecklist.com/api/v1/animals/chinese-mystery-snail?lang=pt` — see [openapi.json](https://animalchecklist.com/openapi.json).