It is known that China is the nation with the largest population in the world. But the country also has a wide range of flora and fauna. Recently a team of researchers discovered a new species of snail, which is so far the smallest land snail.

The newly discovered snail species called angustopila dominikae is so small that 10 of the snails can fit into the eye of a needle, according to The Guardian.

According to journal Zookeys, scientists associated with the find includes Barna Pall-Gergely, Takahiro Asami, Adrienne Jochum, Andras Hunyadi from Shinshu University, Natural History Museum of Bern.

The team discovered seven new species in all. The tiny snails were found in a sample of soil at the base of a limestone cliff in Guangxi, just north of Vietnam. The team said so far several details on how the snails live are still unknown to them.

On the basis of what they so far know about other cave-dwelling snails, it's likely these tiny creatures feed on microorganisms like bacteria and fungal filaments, according to Newsweek.com, said Jochum.

He theorized that the round shapes of the shells of these snail species might allow them to wedge themselves into tiny cracks in rocks, or to float in water if required.

Pall-Gergely said the discovery of the small snails has big implications for scientists and the public. "Extremes in body size of organisms not only attract attention from the public, but also incite interest regarding their adaptation to their environment", he said.

The team hopes the results of their find will provide the taxonomic ground work for future studies concerning the evolution of dwarfism in invertebrates, according to the Daily Record.

Eike Neubert, a researcher at Bern's Natural History Museum who wasn't involved in the paper, says that "this is a superb study on usually overlooked species of snails. People are not aware that the world is full of microscopic life beyond the level of bacteria or unicellular organisms." Neubert estimates that more than 75 percent of snails are actually quite small, at less than 5 millimeters in length, and thus "beyond the magic boundary of public awareness."

"The world is full of small snails," he says, "on land as well as in the seas or in the freshwater."