''Ptychalaea'' is a fossil
genus
Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms as well as viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus comes above species and below family. In binomial nom ...
of very small, air-breathing
land snails,
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 gastropod molluscs in the family
Gastrocoptidae
Gastrocoptidae is a family of minute, air-breathing land snails, terrestrial pulmonate gastropod molluscs in the superfamily Pupilloidea.Philippe Bouchet, Jean-Pierre Rocroi, Bernhard Hausdorf, Andrzej Kaim, Yasunori Kano, Alexander Nützel, ...
.
[Harzhauser M., Neubauer T.A., Georgopoulou E., Harl J. 2014]
The Early Miocene (Burdigalian) mollusc fauna of the North Bohemian Lake (Most Basin)
// Bulletin of Geosciences
The ''Bulletin of Geosciences'' is a peer-reviewed scientific journal publishing original research papers, review articles, and short contributions. It covers all aspects of palaeoenvironmental geology, including palaeontology, stratigraphy, s ...
. Vol.89. No.4. P.819–908.[Balashov I.A. & Perkovsky E.E. 2020]
An Eocene land snail ''Balticopta gusakovi'' gen.n., sp.n. (Stylommatophora: Gastrocoptidae) from Baltic amber
// Invertebrate Zoology. Vol.17. No.1: 18–24.
Taxonomy
The type species of the genus is fossil ''
Ptychalaea flexidens'' (Reuss, 1861) from
Miocene
The Miocene ( ) is the first epoch (geology), geological epoch of the Neogene Period and extends from about (Ma). The Miocene was named by Scottish geologist Charles Lyell; the name comes from the Greek words (', "less") and (', "new") and mea ...
of
Europe
Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a subcontinent of Eurasia and it is located entirel ...
. In 1920 the extant snails from
Japan were placed into ''Ptychalaea'' - ''Nesopupa dedecora'' Pilsbry, 1902 and its form ''Nesopupa tamagonari'' Pilsbry, Hirase, 1904. Japanese species was established under the name ''
Ptychalaea dedecora'' (Pilsbry, 1902). Although in 2018 it was shown that ''Nesopupa dedecora'' and its form ''Nesopupa tamagonari'' belong to genus ''
Vertigo
Vertigo is a condition where a person has the sensation of movement or of surrounding objects moving when they are not. Often it feels like a spinning or swaying movement. This may be associated with nausea, vomiting, sweating, or difficulties w ...
'' (
Vertiginidae
Vertiginidae, common name the whorl snails, is a family of minute, air-breathing land snails, terrestrial pulmonate gastropod molluscs or micromollusks in the superfamily Pupilloidea.
Distribution
The distribution of the Vertiginidae is in the ...
) and on this basis it was erroneously concluded by J.C. Nekola with coauthors that ''Ptychalaea'' is synonym of ''
Vertigo
Vertigo is a condition where a person has the sensation of movement or of surrounding objects moving when they are not. Often it feels like a spinning or swaying movement. This may be associated with nausea, vomiting, sweating, or difficulties w ...
''. Although in fact it only means that ''Nesopupa dedecora'' is not a species of ''Ptychalaea'' and there should be no consequence for taxonomic status of this genus. The type species of ''Ptychalaea'', ''
Ptychalaea flexidens'' from
Miocene
The Miocene ( ) is the first epoch (geology), geological epoch of the Neogene Period and extends from about (Ma). The Miocene was named by Scottish geologist Charles Lyell; the name comes from the Greek words (', "less") and (', "new") and mea ...
of
Europe
Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a subcontinent of Eurasia and it is located entirel ...
, is probably not related to extant ''Nesopupa dedecora'' from
Japan.
Fossil species ''
Ptychalaea mystica'' Stworzewicz & Pokryszko, 2015 from
Eocene
The Eocene ( ) Epoch is a geological epoch that lasted from about 56 to 33.9 million years ago (mya). It is the second epoch of the Paleogene Period in the modern Cenozoic Era. The name ''Eocene'' comes from the Ancient Greek (''ēṓs'', " ...
Baltic amber
The Baltic region is home to the largest known deposit of amber, called Baltic amber or succinite. It was produced sometime during the Eocene epoch, but exactly when is controversial. It has been estimated that these forests created more than ...
was also described in this genus.
[Stworzewicz, E., Pokryszko, B.M. (2015). A new pupilloid species and some other Eocene terrestrial gastropods from Baltic amber. Palaeontographica Abteilung A. 304(1-6): 65-75.]
References
Links
MolluscaBase - Ptychalaea
{{Taxonbar, from=Q7257129
Stylommatophora
Taxonomy articles created by Polbot