Haplotrematidae 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. A ...

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

predatory Predation is a biological interaction where one organism, the predator, kills and eats another organism, its prey. It is one of a family of common feeding behaviours that includes parasitism and micropredation (which usually do not kill t ...

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

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 es ...

s in the superfamily Haplotrematoidea. MolluscaBase eds. (2021). MolluscaBase. Haplotrematidae H. B. Baker, 1925. Accessed through: World Register of Marine Species at: http://marinespecies.org/aphia.php?p=taxdetails&id=994703 on 2021-02-21

Distribution

These are North American land snails. They occur from

Alaska Alaska ( ; russian: Аляска, Alyaska; ale, Alax̂sxax̂; ; ems, Alas'kaaq; Yup'ik: ''Alaskaq''; tli, Anáaski) is a state located in the Western United States on the northwest extremity of North America. A semi-exclave of the U.S ...

, through

British Columbia British Columbia (commonly abbreviated as BC) is the westernmost Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada, situated between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains. It has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that include ...

, and as far south as northern

Mexico Mexico ( Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guate ...

, but they are predominantly snails of the eastern and western

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., federal district, five ma ...

.Pilsbry, Henry A. 1946. Land Mollusca of North America (North of Mexico). Acad. Nat. Sci. Philadelphia, Monograph 3, vol. 2(1): 201-230. HaplotremaVncouvnssExBnny20

Shell description

Their shells vary in size from small (7 mm in diameter, or about 0.3 inches) to medium (32 mm, about 1.3 inches), usually with a low, flattened spire, a very wide umbilicus, and usually with the upper lip margin (at the aperture) curving downwards or straightened.

Anatomy

They have a number of anatomical peculiarities. The structure of the

radula The radula (, ; plural radulae or radulas) is an anatomical structure used by molluscs for feeding, sometimes compared to a tongue. It is a minutely toothed, chitinous ribbon, which is typically used for scraping or cutting food before the food ...

of these snails (their "teeth") is unusual. Essentially, haplotrematids have fewer cusps than most snails, but they are considerably elongated, suitable for the predatory life they follow. Members of this family have been given the common name "lancetooth" snails, presumably based on this last anatomical characteristic. Their sole food source consists, as far as is known, of other terrestrial mollusks. In this family, the number of haploid

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 ar ...

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

Genera within the family Haplotrematidae include: ; Subfamily Austroselenitinae H. B. Baker, 1941 * '' Austroselenites'' Kobelt, 1905 * '' Zophos'' Gude, 1911Gude (1911). ''Proc. malac. Soc. London'' 9: 269. ;Subfamily Haplotrematinae H. B. Baker, 1925 * '' Ancomena'' H. B. Baker, 1931 * ''

Ancotrema ''Ancotrema'' is a genus of air-breathing land snails, terrestrial animal, terrestrial pulmonate gastropod mollusks in the family Haplotrematidae. This genus is sometimes considered to be a subgenus of ''Haplotrema''. ''Haplotrema'' and ''Ancot ...

'' H. B. Baker, 1931 * '' Greggiella'' H. B. Baker, 1941 * '' Haplotrema'' Ancey, 1881 ;Synonyms: * ''Moerchia'' E. von Martens, 1860: synonym of '' Zophos'' Gude, 1911 (invalid: junior homonym of ''Moerchia'' A. Adams, 1860 ublished earlier * ''Selenites'' P. Fischer, 1878: synonym of ''Zophos'' Gude, 1911 * ''Proselenites'' Thiele, 1927: synonym of ''Haplotrema (Geomene)'' Pilsbry, 1927 represented as ''Haplotrema'' Ancey, 1881

References

* Bouchet P., Rocroi J.P., Hausdorf B., Kaim A., Kano Y., Nützel A., Parkhaev P., Schrödl M. & Strong E.E. (2017). Revised classification, nomenclator and typification of gastropod and monoplacophoran families. Malacologia. 61(1-2): 1-526

External links

* {{Taxonbar, from=Q3073874