''Aaadonta'' is a

genus Genus (; : genera ) is a taxonomic rank above species and below family (taxonomy), family as used in the biological classification of extant taxon, living and fossil organisms as well as Virus classification#ICTV classification, viruses. In bino ...

of 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 molluscs, terrestrial gastropod mollusks that have gastropod shell, shel ...

terrestrial Terrestrial refers to things related to land or the planet Earth, as opposed to extraterrestrial. 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 o ...

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 inclu ...

gastropod Gastropods (), commonly known as slugs and snails, belong to a large Taxonomy (biology), taxonomic class of invertebrates within the phylum Mollusca called Gastropoda (). This class comprises snails and slugs from saltwater, freshwater, and fro ...

mollusk Mollusca is a phylum of protostomic invertebrate animals, whose members are known as molluscs or mollusks (). Around 76,000 extant species of molluscs are recognized, making it the second-largest animal phylum after Arthropoda. The ...

s in the family

Endodontidae Endodontidae is a taxonomic family of very small air-breathing land snails and slugs, terrestrial pulmonate gastropod molluscs in the superfamily Punctoidea. This family, which includes both snails and slugs, appears to have once been much mo ...

. Specimens from this genus are endemic to

Palau Palau, officially the Republic of Palau, is an island country in the Micronesia subregion of Oceania in the western Pacific Ocean. The Republic of Palau consists of approximately 340 islands and is the western part of the Caroline Islands ...

Species

Species in the genus ''Aaadonta'' include: * '' Aaadonta angaurana'' Solem, 1976 * '' Aaadonta constricta'' Semper, 1874;

Type species In International_Code_of_Zoological_Nomenclature, zoological nomenclature, a type species (''species typica'') is the species name with which the name of a genus or subgenus is considered to be permanently taxonomically associated, i.e., the spe ...

* '' Aaadonta fuscozonata'' (E.H. Beddome, 1889) * '' Aaadonta irregularis'' Semper, 1874 * '' Aaadonta kinlochi'' Solem, 1976 * '' Aaadonta pelewana'' Solem, 1976 The genus was given its unusual name by the biologist

Alan Solem George Alan Solem (21 June 1931 – 26 March 1990),Coan E. V., Kabat A. R. & Petit R. E. (2009). ''2,400 years of malacology, 6th ed.'', February 15, 2009, 830 pp. + 32 pp. nnex of Collations American Malacological Society: http://www.malacologi ...

, who wanted it to appear first in any alphabetical list of endodontid genera. For animal genera, the first alphabetically listed name is '' Aaaaba'', which is a genus of beetles from Australia. The current conservation status, according to the IUCN Red List, varies depending on species, though they all fall into the larger category of being threatened. One cause of a low population stated by Solem could be that ant colonies that come into the area can prey on eggs of the various species, thus wiping out a large number of snails, potentially without harming the adult snails. Some species, like the fuscozonata, have not been found recently and leads researchers to believe that they may already be extinct.

Establishing the genus

While single localities had been found before Alan Solem established the genus, such as ''Aaadonta angaurana'' in 1936, the six species were first defined in Solem's 1976 paper. Solem defined the genus' and species qualities in 8 rules defining shell shape. But since the genus was established, many of the species within it have been difficult to keep track of. A report in 2005 only found ''Aaandonta constricta'' and ''Aaandonta kinlochi''.

Environment

The habitat where ''Aaadonta'' were typically found ranged from

primary forest An old-growth forest or primary forest is a forest that has developed over a long period of time without Disturbance (ecology), disturbance. Due to this, old-growth forests exhibit unique ecological features. The Food and Agriculture Organizati ...

s to

secondary forest A secondary forest (or second-growth forest) is a forest or woodland area which has regenerated through largely natural processes after human-caused Disturbance (ecology), disturbances, such as Logging, timber harvest or agriculture clearing, or ...

s, and even to mountain bases. However, they usually resided on the underside of natural resources. Moreover, they were found under rocks or stones, and under leaves. Some species were found living on dead plants and low levels of trees, as well as on the moss of some boulders.

Species

Establishing the genus

Environment

See also

References

Further reading