Cerionidae is 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 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 superfamily Urocoptoidea.

Pre-2008 taxonomy

According to the taxonomy of the Gastropoda by Bouchet & Rocroi, 2005), the family Cerionidae is classified in the superfamily

Orthalicoidea Orthalicoidea is a superfamily of air-breathing land snails, terrestrial gastropod mollusks in the infraorder Orthalicoidei of the suborder Helicina.MolluscaBase eds. (2021). MolluscaBase. Simpulopsidae Schileyko, 1999. Accessed through: Wor ...

, within the informal group

Sigmurethra Sigmurethra is a taxonomic category of air-breathing land snails and slugs, terrestrial pulmonate gastropod molluscs. This is an informal group which includes most land snails and slugs. The two strong synapomorphies of Sigmurethra are a long ...

, itself belonging to the

clade In biology, a clade (), also known as a Monophyly, monophyletic group or natural group, is a group of organisms that is composed of a common ancestor and all of its descendants. Clades are the fundamental unit of cladistics, a modern approach t ...

Stylommatophora Stylommatophora is an orderPhilippe Bouchet, Jean-Pierre Rocroi, Bernhard Hausdorf, Andrzej Kaim, Yasunori Kano, Alexander Nützel, Pavel Parkhaev, Michael Schrödl and Ellen E. Strong. 2017. Revised Classification, Nomenclator and Typification of ...

within the clade

Eupulmonata Eupulmonata is a taxonomic clade of air-breathing gastropod molluscs. The great majority of this group are land snails and slugs, but some are intertidal or inhabit coastal saltmarshes and mangroves. Possible synapomorphy of the group are gl ...

. The family Cerionidae has no subfamilies.

2008 taxonomy

Uit de Weerd (2008) moved the Cerionidae to the newly established superfamily Urocoptoidea based on

molecular phylogeny Molecular phylogenetics () is the branch of phylogeny that analyzes genetic, hereditary molecular differences, predominantly in DNA sequences, to gain information on an organism's evolutionary relationships. From these analyses, it is possible to ...

research.Uit de Weerd D. R. (2008). "Delimitation and phylogenetics of the highly diverse land snail family Urocoptidae (Gastropoda, Pulmonata) based on 28S rRNA sequence data: A reunion with ''Cerion''". ''

Journal of Molluscan Studies The ''Journal of Molluscan Studies'' is the peer-reviewed scientific journal of the Malacological Society of London, covering research in malacology.

'' 74: 317–329. .

Fossil record

The oldest fossil cerionid is '' C. acherontis'' from the Upper Cretaceous

Hell Creek Formation The Hell Creek Formation is an intensively studied division of mostly Upper Cretaceous and some lower Paleocene rocks in North America, named for exposures studied along Hell Creek, near Jordan, Montana. The Formation (stratigraphy), formation s ...

, in Montana, northwestern USA.Roth, B. & Hartman, J.H. 1998. A probable Cerion (Gastropoda: Pulmonata) from Uppermost Cretaceous Hell Creek Formation, Garfield County, Montana. ''PaleoBios'' 18: 16–20. The second oldest record is the genus '' Brasilennea'' from the Brazilian

Paleocene The Paleocene ( ), or Palaeocene, is a geological epoch (geology), epoch that lasted from about 66 to 56 mya (unit), million years ago (mya). It is the first epoch of the Paleogene Period (geology), Period in the modern Cenozoic Era (geology), ...

Itaboraí Basin Itaboraí (, ) is a city in the state of Rio de Janeiro (state), Rio de Janeiro in Brazil, that belongs to the Rio de Janeiro metropolitan area. It was founded in 1672. In 2020, it had a population of 242,543. Around the year 1000, Tupi-speakin ...

, in Rio de Janeiro.Salvador, R.B.; Rowson, B.; Simone, L.R.L. 2011. Rewriting the fossil history of Cerionidae (Gastropoda: Pulmonata): new family assignment of the Brazilian Palaeocene genus ''Brasilennea'' Maury, 1935. ''Journal of Molluscan Studies'' 77: 445–447.

Genera

Genera within the Cerionidae include: * '' Brasilennea'' Maury, 1935Maury, C.J. 1935. New genera and new species of fossil terrestrial Mollusca from Brazil. ''American Museum Novitates'' 764: 1–15. * '' Cerion'' Röding, 1798 - the type genus of the family Cerionidae * '' Mexistrophia'' Thompson, 2011Thompson, F.G. 2011. ''Mexistrophia'', a new genus of Cerionidae from Mexico (Gastropoda: Pulmonata: Urocoptoidea). ''Nautilus'' 125(4): 182–192.

References

External links

* Gastropod families {{Cerionidae-stub