''Humboldtiana'' is a

genus Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of extant taxon, living and fossil organisms as well as Virus classification#ICTV classification, viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus com ...

of American 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 in the subfamily Humboldtianinae.

Anatomy

Snails in this genus create and use

love darts A love dart (also known as a gypsobelum, shooting darts, or just as darts) is a sharp, calcareous or chitinous dart which some hermaphroditic land snails and slugs create. Love darts are both formed and stored internally in a dart sac. The ...

as part of their mating behavior. The scanning electron microscope images on the left show (above) the lateral view of the love dart of '' Humboldtiana nuevoleonis'', scale bar 500 μm (0.5 mm); and (below) a cross section of the dart, scale bar 50 μm.

Species

Species within the genus ''Humboldtiana'' include: * '' Humboldtiana agavophila'' Pratt, 1971Pratt W. L. (25 May 1971). "''Humboldtiana agavophila'', a New Helminthoglyptid Land Snail from the Chisos Mountains, Big Bend National Park, Texas". '' The Southwestern Naturalist'' 15(4): 429-435
JSTOR
* '' Humboldtiana hoegiana'' * '' Humboldtiana nuevoleonis'' Pilsbry, 1927 * '' Humboldtiana ultima''

Anatomy

Species

References

Further reading