Achatinellidae is a family of tropical 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 ...

s, terrestrial pulmonate

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 superfamily Pupilloidea.

Taxonomy

It was previously the only family in the superfamily Achatinelloidea (according to the taxonomy of the Gastropoda by Bouchet & Rocroi, 2005). It is now classified under the superfamily Pupilloidea. The family Achatinellidae represents a diverse adaptive radiation. All species of tree-snail in Hawaii are believed to have come from a single ancestral snail. How that ancestral snail made the trip across the ocean is unknown. A longstanding theory is that a bird carried a notably smaller ancestor across the ocean and dropped it on the islands, as bird mediated dispersal has been documented in other snail species. Alternative theories include that it floating across the ocean on a mat of debris, or that it island hopped across the Pacific in a combination of the theories. Subfamilies in the family Achatinellidae include: * Achatinellinae Gulick, 1873 - synonym: Helicterinae Pease, 1870 (inv.) * Auriculellinae Odhner, 1921 * Elasmatininae Iredale, 1937 ** tribe Elasmatinini Iredale, 1937 - synonyms: Strobilidae Zilch, 1959 (n.a.); Pitysinae Cooke & Kondo, 1961 ** tribe Antonellini Cooke & Kondo, 1961 ** tribe Tubuaiini Cooke & Kondo, 1961 * Pacificellinae Steenberg, 1925 ** tribe Pacificellini Steenberg, 1925 - synonym: Tornatellinoptini Cooke & Kondo, 1961 ** tribe Lamellideini Cooke & Kondo, 1961 * Tekoulininae Solem, 1972 * Tornatellidinae Cooke & Kondo, 1961 ** tribe Tornatellidini Cooke & Kondo, 1961 ** tribe Tornatellariini Cooke & Kondo, 1961 * Tornatellininae Sykes, 1900 ** tribe Tornatellinini Sykes, 1900 ** tribe Elasmiatini Kuroda & Habe, 1949

Anatomy

In this family, the number of haploid chromosomes lies between 16 and 25 (according to the values in the 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.

Distribution

This family of snails occurs widely in the Pacific islands. They are at their most diverse in the

Hawaii Hawaii ( ; ) is an island U.S. state, state of the United States, in the Pacific Ocean about southwest of the U.S. mainland. One of the two Non-contiguous United States, non-contiguous U.S. states (along with Alaska), it is the only sta ...

an group.

Genera

Genera in the family Achatinellidae include: Achatinellinae * '' Achatinella'' Swainson, 1828 - type genus of the subfamily Achatinellinae * '' Partulina'' Pfeiffer, 1854 * ''

Perdicella ''Perdicella'' is a genus of tropical air-breathing land snails, terrestrial animal, terrestrial pulmonate gastropod molluscs in the family Achatinellidae. They are Endemism, endemic to Hawaii and the majority of the species are extinct. Species ...

'' Pease, 1870 * '' Newcombia'' Pfeiffer, 1854 Auriculellinae * '' Auriculella'' Pfeiffer, 1854 - type genus of the subfamily Auriculellinae Elasmatininae * tribe Elasmatinini * tribe Antonellini * tribe Tubuaiini ** '' Tubuaia'' Pacificellinae * tribe Pacificellini ** '' Tornatellinops'' Pilsbry & Cooke, 1915 * tribe Lamellideini ** '' Lamellidea'' Pilsbry, 1910 Tekoulininae ** Tekoulina Solem, 1972 Tornatellidinae * tribe Tornatellidini ** '' Tornatellides'' Pilsbry, 1910 - type genus of the tribe Tornatellidini * tribe Tornatellariini ** '' Tornatellaria'' Pilsbry, 1910 - type genus of the tribe Tornatellariini Tornatellininae * tribe Tornatellinini ** '' Tornatellina'' L. Pfeiffer, 1842 - type genus the tribe Tornatellinini * tribe Elasmiatini ** '' Elasmias'' Pilsbry, 1910 - type genus of the tribe Elasmiatini unsorted * '' Gulickia'' Cooke, 1915Cowie R. H. (1996).
''Gulickia alexandri''

2006 IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.
Downloaded on 7 August 2007. * † '' Hotumatua'' Kirch, Christensen & Steadman, 2009 - '' Hotumatua anakenana'' Kirch, Christensen & Steadman, 2009Kirch P. V., Christensen C. C. & Steadman D. W. (2009). "Subfossil Land Snails from Easter Island, Including ''Hotumatua anakenana'', New Genus and Species (Pulmonata: Achatinellidae) 1". '' Pacific Science'' 63(1): 105-122
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* '' Tornatellinops'' Pilsbry, 1915 * '' Tornelasmias'' Iredale, 1944

References

External links

* {{Authority control Gastropod families