Colorado River Emergency Closure
Effective immediately, Colorado Parks and Wildlife (CPW) has issued an emergency closure for all public access and downstream recreation on the Colorado River starting at James M. Robb-Colorado River State Park in Fruita and extending to the Utah state line. This closure is necessary for firefighter and public safety due to the Snyder Fire currently burning in McInnis Canyon. Learn more.
A native mollusk with a small, planispiral shell. The shell surface is smooth and glossy, semi-translucent, and brownish.
The ash gyro is a Colorado native mollusk. The ash gyro was originally described in the genus Planorbis.
The shell of the ash gyro is small, up to seven mm in diameter. It is planispiral but not completely flattened. The shell has four rounded whorls that enlarge rapidly and a flat spire that hides first two whorls. The wide umbilicus on the opposite side shows all the whorls. The shell surface is smooth and glossy, semi-translucent, and brownish. The shell of the ash gyro is thicker than the disk gyro (Gyraulus circumstriatus), but they are quite similar.
The range of the ash gyro is from Canada to Florida, from the Atlantic to the Pacific coast.
The ash gyro can be seen throughout Colorado clinging to vegetation in perennial and seasonal shallow waters on the plains and in montane areas. It prefers ponds, impoundments, and slow-moving waters that are choked with vegetation.
