Barleeiidae (often also spelled Barleeidae) is a family of minute sea snails,

micromollusk A micromollusk is a shelled mollusk which is extremely small, even at full adult size. The word is usually, but not exclusively, applied to marine mollusks, although in addition, numerous species of land snails and freshwater mollusks also ...

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Littorinimorpha Littorinimorpha is a large order of snails, gastropods, consisting primarily of sea snails ( marine species), but also including some freshwater snails ( aquatic species) and land snails (terrestrial species).Bouchet P. & Rocroi J.-P. (Ed.); Fr� ...

.Gofas S. (1995). A remarkable species richness of the Barleeidae (Gastropoda: Rissoacea) in the Eastern Atlantic. The Nautilus 109(1): 14-37 These snails are very abundant and live in

sublittoral The littoral zone or nearshore is the part of a sea, lake, or river that is close to the shore. In coastal ecology, the littoral zone includes the intertidal zone extending from the high water mark (which is rarely inundated), to coastal area ...

and

intertidal The intertidal zone, also known as the foreshore, is the area above water level at low tide and underwater at high tide (in other words, the area within the tidal range). This area can include several types of Marine habitat, habitats with var ...

waters on rocky substrates. The shells are conical to high- spired. Their inner shell layer is

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ous. They are further characterized by a foot with sometimes a posterior mucous gland. Their olfactory organ, the

osphradium The osphradium is a pigmented chemosensory epithelium patch in the mantle cavity present in six of the eight extant classes of molluscs (it is absent in the scaphopoda and monoplacophora; among cephalopoda, only the nautilus has what appears to be ...

is enlarged. In some species there are oesophageal pouches present. Their

penis A penis (plural ''penises'' or ''penes'' () is the primary sexual organ that male animals use to inseminate females (or hermaphrodites) during copulation. Such organs occur in many animals, both vertebrate and invertebrate, but males do n ...

is sometimes provided with

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tissue. Their

oviduct The oviduct in mammals, is the passageway from an ovary. In human females this is more usually known as the Fallopian tube or uterine tube. The eggs travel along the oviduct. These eggs will either be fertilized by spermatozoa to become a zygote, o ...

glands show a simple

histology Histology, also known as microscopic anatomy or microanatomy, is the branch of biology which studies the microscopic anatomy of biological tissues. Histology is the microscopic counterpart to gross anatomy, which looks at larger structures vis ...

. Few

malacologist Malacology is the branch of invertebrate zoology that deals with the study of the Mollusca (mollusks or molluscs), the second-largest phylum of animals in terms of described species after the arthropods. Mollusks include snails and slugs, clams, ...

s are currently working on

s. Since they are so small (only a few millimeters in size), they are difficult to study and classify. Therefore, these small mollusks are less well known than the larger ones.

Genera

Genera in the family Baleeiidae include: *''

Ansola Antonio Ansola Arrieta (17 January 1931 – 2 December 2013) was a Spanish footballer who played as a defender. He played 141 football games for Real Sociedad mostly during the 1950s. He would end his career at Elche CF Elche Club de Fútb ...

'' Slavoschevskaya, 1975 *'' Barleeia''

Clark Clark is an English language surname, ultimately derived from the Latin with historical links to England, Scotland, and Ireland ''clericus'' meaning "scribe", "secretary" or a scholar within a religious order, referring to someone who was educate ...

, 1853 - Barleysnails *'' Caelatura'' Conrad, 1853 *'' Fictonoba'' Ponder, 1967 *'' Ketosia'' Dos Santos & Absalao, 2006WoRMS (2009). ''Ketosia''. Accessed through the World Register of Marine Species at http://marinespecies.org/aphia.php?p=taxdetails&id=391637 on 2010-09-16 *''

Lirobarleeia ''Lirobarleeia'' is a genus of minute sea snails, marine gastropod mollusks or micromollusks in the family Barleeiidae. Species Species within the genus ''Lirobarleeia'' include: *'' Lirobarleeia albolirata'' (Carpenter, 1864) *'' Lirobarleeia b ...

'' Ponder, 1983 *'' Protobarleeia'' Ponder, 1983 *'' Pseudodiala'' Ponder, 1967 *'' Tropidorissoia'' Tomlin & Shackleford, 1915

References

''Ponder W. F. (1983). Review of the genera of the Barleeidae (Mollusca: Gastropoda: Rissoacea)''. Records of the Australian Museum 35: 231-281
* Vaught, K.C. (1989). ''A classification of the living Mollusca''. American Malacologists: Melbourne, FL (USA). . XII, 195 pp.
Gofas S. (1995). ''A remarkable species richness of the Barleeidae (Gastropoda: Rissoacea) in the Eastern Atlantic.'' The Nautilus 109(1): 14-37

External links

Taxonomy
{{Taxonbar, from=Q3171211 Taxa named by John Edward Gray