Athoracophoridae,

common name In biology, a common name of a taxon or organism (also known as a vernacular name, English name, colloquial name, country name, popular name, or farmer's name) is a name that is based on the normal language of everyday life; and is often con ...

the leaf-veined slugs, are a

family Family (from ) is a Social group, group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or Affinity (law), affinity (by marriage or other relationship). It forms the basis for social order. Ideally, families offer predictabili ...

of air-breathing land

slug Slug, or land slug, is a common name for any apparently shell-less Terrestrial mollusc, terrestrial gastropod mollusc. The word ''slug'' is also often used as part of the common name of any gastropod mollusc that has no shell, a very reduced ...

s, terrestrial

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

order Order, ORDER or Orders may refer to: * A socio-political or established or existing order, e.g. World order, Ancien Regime, Pax Britannica * Categorization, the process in which ideas and objects are recognized, differentiated, and understood ...

Stylommatophora, the stalk-eyed snails and slugs. Many of the species have an attractive pattern on their dorsal surface which resembles the veins in a

leaf A leaf (: leaves) is a principal appendage of the plant stem, stem of a vascular plant, usually borne laterally above ground and specialized for photosynthesis. Leaves are collectively called foliage, as in "autumn foliage", while the leav ...

, hence the common name. Athoracophoridae is the only family in the superfamily Athoracophoroidea. Leaf-veined slugs live on the various land masses and islands in the south-west

Pacific The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean, or, depending on the definition, to Antarctica in the south, and is bounded by the cont ...

area. In te reo Māori, leaf-veined slugs are known as putoko ropiropi. The scientific name Athoracophoridae is derived from prefix "a-", that means "without" and from a

Greek Greek may refer to: Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor of all kno ...

word "" (), that means "

breastplate A breastplate or chestplate is a device worn over the torso to protect it from injury, as an item of religious significance, or as an item of status. European In medieval weaponry, the breastplate is the front portion of plate armour covering th ...

". This is a reference to the fact that the mantle in these slugs is small and not well delineated; it does not have the obvious, saddle-shaped or breast-plate-shaped appearance that it does in most other land slug groups.

Anatomy

In the family Athoracophoridae (in subfamily Aneitinae and in subfamily Athoracophorinae), the number of

haploid Ploidy () is the number of complete sets of chromosomes in a cell (biology), cell, and hence the number of possible alleles for Autosome, autosomal and Pseudoautosomal region, pseudoautosomal genes. Here ''sets of chromosomes'' refers to the num ...

chromosome A chromosome is a package of DNA containing part or all of the genetic material of an organism. In most chromosomes, the very long thin DNA fibers are coated with nucleosome-forming packaging proteins; in eukaryotic cells, the most import ...

s lies between 36 and 45 (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. While they belong to the pulmonate snails, they lack a true

lung The lungs are the primary Organ (biology), organs of the respiratory system in many animals, including humans. In mammals and most other tetrapods, two lungs are located near the Vertebral column, backbone on either side of the heart. Their ...

. The vascularized mantle cavity is reduced, and a series of blind tubules radiate from it, being surrounded blood vessels. This allows for a more compact lung structure in these generally flat animals.

Distribution

Species in this family are found in eastern

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...

New Zealand New Zealand () is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and List of islands of New Zealand, over 600 smaller islands. It is the List of isla ...

including its

sub-Antarctic The sub-Antarctic zone is a physiographic region in the Southern Hemisphere, located immediately north of the Antarctic region. This translates roughly to a latitude of between 46° and 60° south of the Equator. The subantarctic region inc ...

islands,

Bismarck Archipelago The Bismarck Archipelago (, ) is a group of islands off the northeastern coast of New Guinea in the western Pacific Ocean and is part of the Islands Region of Papua New Guinea. Its area is about . History The first inhabitants of the archipela ...

, the

Admiralty Islands The Admiralty Islands are an archipelago group of 40 islands in the Bismarck Archipelago, to the north of New Guinea in the South Pacific Ocean. These are also sometimes called the Manus Islands, after the largest island. These rainforest-cov ...

, the

New Hebrides New Hebrides, officially the New Hebrides Condominium () and named after the Hebrides in Scotland, was the colonial name for the island group in the South Pacific Ocean that is now Vanuatu. Native people had inhabited the islands for three th ...

New Caledonia New Caledonia ( ; ) is a group of islands in the southwest Pacific Ocean, southwest of Vanuatu and east of Australia. Located from Metropolitan France, it forms a Overseas France#Sui generis collectivity, ''sui generis'' collectivity of t ...

, as well as on the

Melanesia Melanesia (, ) is a subregion of Oceania in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It extends from New Guinea in the west to the Fiji Islands in the east, and includes the Arafura Sea. The region includes the four independent countries of Fiji, Vanu ...

n islands north to

and

New Britain New Britain () is the largest island in the Bismarck Archipelago, part of the Islands Region of Papua New Guinea. It is separated from New Guinea by a northwest corner of the Solomon Sea (or with an island hop of Umboi Island, Umboi the Dampie ...

Papua New Guinea Papua New Guinea, officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea, is an island country in Oceania that comprises the eastern half of the island of New Guinea and offshore islands in Melanesia, a region of the southwestern Pacific Ocean n ...

Taxonomy

The following two

subfamilies In biological classification, a subfamily (Latin: ', plural ') is an auxiliary (intermediate) taxonomic rank, next below family but more inclusive than genus. Standard nomenclature rules end botanical subfamily names with "-oideae", and zool ...

have been recognized in the taxonomy of Bouchet & Rocroi (2005), that follows classification after Grimpe & Hoffmann (1925): * Athoracophorinae P. Fischer, 1883 (1860) - synonym: Janellidae Gray, 1853 (inv.) - a

subantarctic The sub-Antarctic zone is a physiographic region in the Southern Hemisphere, located immediately north of the Antarctic region. This translates roughly to a latitude of between 46th parallel south, 46° and 60th parallel south, 60° south of t ...

subfamilyBurton D. W. (1982)
"How to be sluggish."
''Tuatara'' 25(2): 48-63

* Aneitinae Gray, 1860 - a northern subfamily The name Athoracophoridae has precedence over the name Aneitidae, because Athoracophoridae is in prevailing usage.

Genera

Genera within the family Athoracophoridae include: Powell A. W. B. (1979). ''New Zealand Mollusca'', William Collins Publishers Ltd, Auckland, New Zealand, * '' Aneitea'' Gray, 1860 ** '' Aneitea sarasini'' * '' Athoracophorus'' Gould, 1852 - the type genus, 3 species * '' Palliopodex'' Burton, 1963 - with the only species '' Palliopodex verrucosus'' (Simroth, 1889) * '' Pseudaneitea'' Cockerell, 1891 * '' Reflectopallium'' Burton, 1963 * '' Triboniophorus'' Humbert, 1863

References

External links

"Athoracophoridae"
Australian Government.
AMNH
{{Taxonbar, from=Q146753, from2=Q19789333