[Inheritance of the background shell color in the snails Littorina obtusata (Gastropoda, Littorinidae)].

We investigated in a gastropod mollusk Littorina obtusata (L. obtusata) the inheritance of background shell coloration of the shell, which arises on the basis of three pigments: purple, orange, and yellow. We found that the hypothesis on polyallelic inheritance, as in the genus Cepaea, cannot explain the inheritance of shell color in periwinkles. We demonstrated that a separate genetic system is responsible for incorporation of each pigment into the shell. The composition of these genetic systems includes at least tw genes each in the case of the yellow and purple pigments. Our analysis shows that caution should be applied when extending the results obtained in the studies of the Cepaea genus to the other species of gastropods.