Tectibranchia Cuvier, 1814, also spelled as Tectibranchiata, was previously used as 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. ...

order, or suborder, of

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 ...

s in which the gills are usually situated on one side of the back, and protected by a fold of the

mantle A mantle is a piece of clothing, a type of cloak. Several other meanings are derived from that. Mantle may refer to: *Mantle (clothing), a cloak-like garment worn mainly by women as fashionable outerwear **Mantle (vesture), an Eastern Orthodox ve ...

. When there is a shell, it is usually thin and delicate and often rudimentary. Tectibranchia has been firstly used as an order with vernacular name "Tectibranches" by

Georges Cuvier Jean Léopold Nicolas Frédéric, Baron Cuvier (; 23 August 1769 – 13 May 1832), known as Georges Cuvier, was a French natural history, naturalist and zoology, zoologist, sometimes referred to as the "founding father of paleontology". Cuvier ...

in 1814 to include "les Pleurobranches", "les Pleurobranchaea" and "les Aplisiés ...". That covered

bubble shell The order Cephalaspidea, also known as the headshield slugs and bubble snails, is a major taxon of sea slugs and bubble snails, marine gastropod mollusks within the larger clade Euopisthobranchia.Jörger K. M., Stöger I., Kano Y., Fukuda H., K ...

s and the modern families

Pleurobranchidae The Pleurobranchidae are a taxonomic family of sea slugs, marine gastropod molluscs in the clade Pleurobranchomorpha. Characteristics Species in the family Pleurobranchidae have a prominent mantle and an internal shell that becomes re ...

and

Aplysiidae Aplysiidae is the only family in the superfamily Aplysioidea, within the clade Anaspidea. These animals are commonly called sea hares because, unlike most sea slugs, they are often quite large, and when they are underwater, their rounded body sh ...

Thomas Edward Bowdich Thomas Edward Bowdich (20 June 179110 January 1824) was an English traveller and author. Life Bowdich was born at Bristol and educated at Bristol Grammar School. In 1813, he married Sarah Bowdich Lee, Sarah Wallis, who shared his subsequent car ...

(1822) Bowdich T. E. (1822). ''Elements of Conchology including the fossil genera and the animals''. Part 1, Univalves. Treuttel & Würtz, London, 83 pp + plates captions. page 60. Latinized the term as Tectibranchi.

References

This article incorporates CC-BY-SA-3.0 text from the reference Gofas, S. (2010). Tectibranchiata. In: Bouchet, P.; Gofas, S.; Rosenberg, G. (2010) World Marine Mollusca database. Accessed through: World Register of Marine Species at http://www.marinespecies.org/aphia.php?p=taxdetails&id=181509 on 2010-12-29 {{reflist Obsolete gastropod taxa

See also

References