Euconulidae is a

taxonomic Taxonomy is the practice and science of categorization or classification. A taxonomy (or taxonomical classification) is a scheme of classification, especially a hierarchical classification, in which things are organized into groups or types. ...

family Family (from la, familia) is a Social group, group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or Affinity (law), affinity (by marriage or other relationship). The purpose of the family is to maintain the well-being of its ...

of minute, air-breathing

land snail A land snail is any of the numerous species of snail that live on land, as opposed to the sea snails and freshwater snails. ''Land snail'' is the common name for terrestrial gastropod mollusks that have shells (those without shells are known as ...

terrestrial Terrestrial refers to things related to land or the planet Earth. Terrestrial may also refer to: * Terrestrial animal, an animal that lives on land opposed to living in water, or sometimes an animal that lives on or near the ground, as opposed to ...

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 ...

s or

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 ...

s in the superfamily Trochomorphoidea. This land snail family is closely allied to the Zonitidae, the glass snails.

Taxonomy

The family Euconulidae was originally placed within the superfamily

Gastrodontoidea Gastrodontoidea is a taxonomic superfamily of air-breathing land snails, terrestrial pulmonate gastropod mollusks in the limacoid clade. Taxonomy According to the taxonomy of the Gastropoda (Bouchet & Rocroi, 2005), families in this superfamily ...

according to the

taxonomy of the Gastropoda (Bouchet & Rocroi, 2005) The taxonomy of the Gastropoda as it was revised in 2005 by Philippe Bouchet and Jean-Pierre Rocroi is a system for the scientific classification of gastropod mollusks. (Gastropods are a taxonomic class of animals which consists of snails and ...

. Since 2017, its classification has been revised and it now belongs to the superfamily Trochomorphoidea

Distribution

The distribution of the Euconulidae includes the

Nearctic The Nearctic realm is one of the eight biogeographic realms constituting the Earth's land surface. The Nearctic realm covers most of North America, including Greenland, Central Florida, and the highlands of Mexico. The parts of North America t ...

, the western-

Palearctic The Palearctic or Palaearctic is the largest of the eight biogeographic realms of the Earth. It stretches across all of Eurasia north of the foothills of the Himalayas, and North Africa. The realm consists of several bioregions: the Euro-Sibe ...

, the eastern-Palearctic, the

Neotropical The Neotropical realm is one of the eight biogeographic realms constituting Earth's land surface. Physically, it includes the tropical terrestrial ecoregions of the Americas and the entire South American temperate zone. Definition In bioge ...

zone, the

Ethiopia Ethiopia, , om, Itiyoophiyaa, so, Itoobiya, ti, ኢትዮጵያ, Ítiyop'iya, aa, Itiyoppiya officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a landlocked country in the Horn of Africa. It shares borders with Eritrea to the ...

n zone, Malagasy, south-eastern Asia, Australia, Polynesia and

Hawaii Hawaii ( ; haw, Hawaii or ) is a state in the Western United States, located in the Pacific Ocean about from the U.S. mainland. It is the only U.S. state outside North America, the only state that is an archipelago, and the only stat ...

. Humidity, temperature, rainfall, and foliar dripping derived from dew, mist, and rain, affect the behavior and substrate selection of small terrestrial molluscs, such as ''Tikoconus costarricanus'', which inhabit shrubs in humid tropical montane forests. There is also a preference of some parts of a leaf, for example, in some cases the lower side is preferred, possibly because it has better humidity and protects small snails from the impact of raindrops.

Shell description

These minute snails have a

shell Shell may refer to: Architecture and design * Shell (structure), a thin structure ** Concrete shell, a thin shell of concrete, usually with no interior columns or exterior buttresses ** Thin-shell structure Science Biology * Seashell, a hard o ...

which is roundly conical and broad-based, like the shape of an old-fashioned European woven bee hive or

skep A beehive is an enclosed structure in which some honey bee species of the subgenus '' Apis'' live and raise their young. Though the word ''beehive'' is commonly used to describe the nest of any bee colony, scientific and professional literature ...

. For this reason these snails are sometimes known as "hive snails". The shells of most Euconulidae are only about 3 mm in size, amber-colored and translucent.

Anatomy

In this family, the number of

haploid Ploidy () is the number of complete sets of chromosomes in a cell, and hence the number of possible alleles for autosomal and pseudoautosomal genes. Sets of chromosomes refer to the number of maternal and paternal chromosome copies, respectively ...

chromosome A chromosome is a long DNA molecule with part or all of the genetic material of an organism. In most chromosomes the very long thin DNA fibers are coated with packaging proteins; in eukaryotic cells the most important of these proteins are ...

s lies between 26 and 30 (according to the values in this table).Barker G. M.: Gastropods on Land: ''Phylogeny, Diversity and Adaptive Morphology''. in Barker G. M. (ed.):
The biology of terrestrial molluscs
'. CABI Publishing, Oxon, UK, 2001, . 1-146, cited pages: 139 and 142.

Genera

Subfamilies and genera in the family Euconulidae include: Euconulinae * '' Afroconulus'' Van Mol & van Bruggen, 1971MolluscaBase (2018). Euconulinae H.B. Baker, 1928. Accessed through: World Register of Marine Species at: http://marinespecies.org/aphia.php?p=taxdetails&id=994926 on 2018-09-14 * '' Afroguppya'' de Winter & Bruggen, 1992 * '' Afropunctum'' F. Haas, 1934 * '' Cancelloconus'' I. Rensch, 1932 * '' Coneuplecta'' Möllendorff, 1893 * '' Diepenheimia'' Preston, 1913 * '' Discoconulus'' Reinhardt, 1883 * '' Dryachloa'' F. G. Thompson & H. G. Lee, 1980 * '' Euconulus'' Reinhardt, 1883 - type genus of the family Euconulidae * '' Guppya'' Mörch, 1867 * '' Habroconus'' Crosse & P. Fischer, 1872 * '' Kororia'' H. B. Baker, 1941 * '' Louisia'' Godwin-Austen, 1908 * '' Luchuconulus'' Pilsbry, 1928 * '' Palaua'' H.B. Baker, 1941 * '' Papuarion'' Van Mol, 1973 * '' Parasitala'' Thiele, 1931 * '' Sabalimax'' Tillier & Bouchet, 1989 * '' Serostena'' Iredale, 1941 * '' Tikoconus'' Barrientos, 2019 * '' Velifera'' W.G. Binney, 1879 Microcystinae * '' Allenoconcha'' Preston, 1913 * ''

Aukena Aukena is the 5th largest of the Gambier Islands in French Polynesia. Aukena is located about halfway between Mangareva and Akamaru, or about 5 km southeast of Mangareva. Aukena is approximately 2.5 km long and about 0.5 km wide, ...

'' Baker, 1940Bouchet P. & Abdou A. (2001). "Recent Extinct Land Snails (Euconulidae) from the Gambier Islands with Remarkable Apertural Barriers". ''

Pacific Science ''Pacific Science'' is a quarterly multidisciplinary peer-reviewed scientific journal covering the biological and physical sciences of the Pacific basin, focusing especially on biogeography, ecology, evolution, geology and volcanology, oceanograph ...

'' 55(2): 121-127. . * '' Buffetia'' Iredale, 1945 (nomen nudum) * '' Cookeana'' * ''

Diastole Diastole ( ) is the relaxed phase of the cardiac cycle when the chambers of the heart are re-filling with blood. The contrasting phase is systole when the heart chambers are contracting. Atrial diastole is the relaxing of the atria, and ventric ...

'' Gude, 1913 * '' Faunulena'' * '' Greenwoodoconcha'' * '' Hiona'' Cooke, 1940 * '' Innesoconcha'' Iredale, 1944 * '' Iredaleoconcha'' Preston, 1913 * '' Kaala'' * '' Kusaiea'' Baker, 1938 * '' Lamprocystis'' * '' Liardetia'' * '' Melloconcha'' Iredale, 1944 * '' Mendana'' * ''

Microcystis ''Microcystis'' is a genus of freshwater cyanobacteria that includes the harmful algal bloom-forming ''Microcystis aeruginosa''. Many members of a ''Microcystis'' community can produce neurotoxins and hepatotoxins, such as microcystin and cyanop ...

'' * '' Nancibella'' * '' Periclocystis'' * '' Philonesia'' Sykes, 1900 * '' Piena'' * '' Pukaloa'' * '' Tengchiena''

Cladogram

The following

cladogram A cladogram (from Greek ''clados'' "branch" and ''gramma'' "character") is a diagram used in cladistics to show relations among organisms. A cladogram is not, however, an evolutionary tree because it does not show how ancestors are related to d ...

shows the

phylogenic In biology, phylogenetics (; from Greek φυλή/ φῦλον [] "tribe, clan, race", and wikt:γενετικός, γενετικός [] "origin, source, birth") is the study of the evolutionary history and relationships among or within groups o ...

relationships of this family with the other families within the

limacoid clade The Limacoidei is a taxonomic infraorder of air-breathing land snails, semislugs and slugs, terrestrial pulmonate gastropod molluscs in the suborder Helicina Distribution The original ancestral area of limacoid families is thought to b ...

:Hausdorf B. (2000). "Biogeography of the Limacoidea sensu lato (Gastropoda: Stylommatophora): Vicariance Events and Long-Distance Dispersal". ''

Journal of Biogeography The ''Journal of Biogeography'' is a peer-reviewed scientific journal in biogeography that was established in 1974. It covers aspects of spatial, ecological, and historical biogeography. The founding editor-in-chief was David Watts, followed by J ...

'' 27(2): 379-390.
JSTOR

References

External links

* {{Taxonbar, from=Q120147