''Deroceras rodnae'' is a

species In biology, a species is the basic unit of classification and a taxonomic rank of an organism, as well as a unit of biodiversity. A species is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate s ...

of air-breathing land

slug Slug, or land slug, is a common name for any apparently shell-less terrestrial gastropod mollusc. The word ''slug'' is also often used as part of the common name of any gastropod mollusc that has no shell, a very reduced shell, or only a smal ...

, a terrestrial

pulmonate Pulmonata or pulmonates, is an informal group (previously an order, and before that a subclass) of snails and slugs characterized by the ability to breathe air, by virtue of having a pallial lung instead of a gill, or gills. The group includ ...

gastropod The gastropods (), commonly known as snails and slugs, belong to a large taxonomic class of invertebrates within the phylum Mollusca called Gastropoda (). This class comprises snails and slugs from saltwater, from freshwater, and from land. T ...

mollusk Mollusca is the second-largest phylum of invertebrate animals after the Arthropoda, the members of which are known as molluscs or mollusks (). Around 85,000 extant species of molluscs are recognized. The number of fossil species is e ...

in the family Agriolimacidae.

Taxonomy

''Deroceras rodnae'' was originally described from the Rodna Mountains in Romania by Romanian malacologists

Alexandru Vasile Grossu Alexandru is the Romanian language, Romanian form of the name Alexander. Common diminutives are Alecu, Alex (disambiguation), Alex, and Sandu (disambiguation), Sandu. Origin Etymology, Etymologically, the name is derived from the Greek language, ...

and Dochiţa Lupu in 1965. The figure in the original description is inadequate, but Wiktor (1973) inspected the type specimen and found it to agree with one of the forms of ''

Deroceras praecox ''Deroceras praecox'' is a species of small air-breathing land slug, a terrestrial pulmonate gastropod mollusk in the family Agriolimacidae. Taxonomy When Wiktor (1966) described ''D. praecox'' he distinguished two forms on the basis of their ...

'' that he had described at about the same time (Wiktor, 1966). The name ''Deroceras rodnae'' has priority for that form and ''Deroceras praecox'' is now restricted to a form with a curved pocket at the end of the penis. Recently Hutchinson & Reise (2009) showed that western populations of ''Deroceras rodnae'' mate in a way so incompatible with that of populations from the east that they must be different species. The morphological differences in preserved specimens are subtle but molecular analyses have confirmed this distinction. '' Deroceras juranum'' Wüthrich, 1993 is the appropriate name to use for these western populations from the Alps and Germany. ''Deroceras rodnae'' s.s. shows considerable interpopulation variation in its genital morphology. For instance, in the

Lesser Fatra Lesser, from Eliezer (, "Help/Court of my Elohim, God"), is a surname. Notable people with the surname include: * Adolf Lesser (1851–1926), German physician * Aleksander Lesser (1814–1884), Polish painter and art critic * Anton Lesser (born 1952 ...

Mountains (Malá Fatra) of Slovakia is a form with a long sarcobelum which Mácha (1981) described as a new species '' Deroceras fatrense'' but which Wiktor (2000) synonymised with ''Deroceras rodnae''. It remains debatable whether ''Deroceras praecox'' might also be viewed as merely another such subspecific form. Note that the clear differences in mating behaviour between ''Deroceras praecox'' and ''Deroceras rodnae'' reported by Reise (1995) now turn out to refer to differences between ''Deroceras praecox'' and ''Deroceras juranum''.

Distribution

''Deroceras rodnae'' s.l. has been reported from Romania,

Ukraine Ukraine ( uk, Україна, Ukraïna, ) is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the second-largest European country after Russia, which it borders to the east and northeast. Ukraine covers approximately . Prior to the ongoing Russian inv ...

,Balashov I. & Gural-Sverlova N. 2012. An annotated checklist of the terrestrial molluscs of Ukraine. ''Journal of Conchology''. 41 (1): 91-109.

Slovakia Slovakia (; sk, Slovensko ), officially the Slovak Republic ( sk, Slovenská republika, links=no ), is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is bordered by Poland to the north, Ukraine to the east, Hungary to the south, Austria to the s ...

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populous ...

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, Hungary, Austria, Switzerland, Germany, Croatia, and France. However, these and most other published data concern ''Deroceras rodnae'' s. l.; that is they do not distinguish ''Deroceras rodnae'' s. s. and ''Deroceras juranum'' (see above). The type locality is in Romania and Hutchinson & Reise (2009) confirmed the occurrence of ''Deroceras rodnae'' s. s. from Poland, Slovakia and Hungary, proposing that all ''Deroceras rodnae'' s. l. occurring east of the range of ''D. praecox'' (which is distributed around the Sudeten mountains) were this species. However, they also report an occurrence of ''Deroceras rodnae'' s. s. in Croatia and discuss a form of uncertain status in the uplands south of Dresden, Germany. They questioned identifications of ''Deroceras rodnae'' s. l. from Spain and Italy.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q5262902 Agriolimacidae Gastropods described in 1965