Ficidae,

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 fig shells 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 medium to large marine

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 ...

s. It is the only family in the superfamily Ficoidea. According to taxonomy of the Gastropoda by Bouchet & Rocroi (2005) the family Ficidae has no subfamilies. The shells of these snails are shaped rather like

fig The fig is the edible fruit of ''Ficus carica'', a species of tree or shrub in the flowering plant family Moraceae, native to the Mediterranean region, together with western and southern Asia. It has been cultivated since ancient times and i ...

s or

pear Pears are fruits produced and consumed around the world, growing on a tree and harvested in late summer into mid-autumn. The pear tree and shrub are a species of genus ''Pyrus'' , in the Family (biology), family Rosaceae, bearing the Pome, po ...

s, hence the common name. The Ficidae were previously included in the Tonnaceae (now

Tonnoidea The Tonnoidea are a superfamily of sea snails, marine gastropod molluscs in the order Littorinimorpha. This superfamily includes many very large species. Nomenclature Beu (1998, 2008) favours usage of Tonnoidea and Tonnidae rather than Cassoid ...

) along with the

Tonnidae The Tonnidae are a family (biology), family of medium-sized to very large sea snails, known as the tun shells. These are marine invertebrates, marine gastropod molluscs in the clade Littorinimorpha. The name ''tun'' refers to the snails' shell sh ...

and Cassididae.

Distribution

The family is found worldwide, mostly in

tropical The tropics are the regions of Earth surrounding the equator, where the sun may shine directly overhead. This contrasts with the temperate or polar regions of Earth, where the Sun can never be directly overhead. This is because of Earth's ax ...

and

subtropical The subtropical zones or subtropics are geographical zone, geographical and Köppen climate classification, climate zones immediately to the Northern Hemisphere, north and Southern Hemisphere, south of the tropics. Geographically part of the Ge ...

silt Silt is granular material of a size between sand and clay and composed mostly of broken grains of quartz. Silt may occur as a soil (often mixed with sand or clay) or as sediment mixed in suspension (chemistry), suspension with water. Silt usually ...

and

mud Mud (, or Middle Dutch) is loam, silt or clay mixed with water. Mud is usually formed after rainfall or near water sources. Ancient mud deposits hardened over geological time to form sedimentary rock such as shale or mudstone (generally cal ...

covered

neritic zone The neritic zone (or sublittoral zone) is the relatively shallow part of the ocean above the drop-off of the continental shelf, approximately in depth. From the point of view of marine biology it forms a relatively stable and well-illuminate ...

Shell description

The shells of species in the Ficidae are thin but strong. They have a large

aperture In optics, the aperture of an optical system (including a system consisting of a single lens) is the hole or opening that primarily limits light propagated through the system. More specifically, the entrance pupil as the front side image o ...

and a long

siphonal canal The siphonal canal is an anatomical feature of the shells of certain groups of sea snails within the clade Neogastropoda. Some sea marine gastropods have a soft tubular anterior extension of the mantle called a siphon through which water i ...

, but an extremely low

spire A spire is a tall, slender, pointed structure on top of a roof of a building or tower, especially at the summit of church steeples. A spire may have a square, circular, or polygonal plan, with a roughly conical or pyramidal shape. Spire ...

which does not protrude above the outline of the

body whorl The body whorl is part of the morphology (biology), morphology of the gastropod shell, shell in those gastropod mollusks that possess a coiled shell. The term is also sometimes used in a similar way to describe the shell of a cephalopod mollusk ...

. Fig shells very often have subdued spiral

ribbing Ribbing is a Swedish noble family of medieval origin. which may refer to: *Adolph Ribbing (1765–1843), Swedish count and politician who took part in the regicide of Gustav III in 1792 *Beata Rosenhane (1638–1674, spouse of Baron Erik Ribbing), ...

, and are subtly patterned in shades of very pale brown and

beige Beige ( ) is variously described as a pale sandy fawn color, a grayish tan, a light-grayish yellowish brown, or a pale to grayish yellow. It takes its name from French, where the word originally meant natural wool that has been neither ble ...

Genera

Genera within the family Ficidae include: * ''

Ficus ''Ficus'' ( or ) is a genus of about 850 species of woody trees, shrubs, vines, epiphytes and hemiepiphytes in the family (biology), family Moraceae. Collectively known as fig trees or figs, they are native throughout the tropics with a few spe ...

'' Röding, 1798 * † '' Austroficopsis'' Stilwell & Zinsmeister, 1992 * † ''

Ficopsis ''Ficopsis'' is an extinct genus of large sea snails, marine gastropod mollusks in the family Ficidae, the fig snails. This species lived from the Paleocene to the Miocene in Africa, Asia, Europe, North America, and South America. References ...

'' Conrad, 1866 * † '' Fusoficula'' * † '' Gonysycon'' * ''

Thalassocyon ''Thalassocyon'' is a genus of sea snails, marine gastropod molluscs in the family Thalassocyonidae. Taxonomy Riedel (1995) elevated this genus to a family level (Thalassocyonidae), a vision not supported in Verhaeghe & Poppe (2000), nor in Bo ...

'' Barnard, 1960WoRMS (2010). ''Thalassocyon'' Barnard, 1960. Accessed through: World Register of Marine Species at http://www.marinespecies.org/aphia.php?p=taxdetails&id=447827 on 2010-05-20 ;Genera brought into synonymy: * ''Ficula'' Swainson, 1835 : synonym of Ficus Röding, 1798 * ''Pirula'' Montfort, 1810 : synonym of Ficus Röding, 1798 * ''Pyrula'' Lamarck, 1799 : synonym of Ficus Röding, 1798 * ''Sycotypus'' Gray, 1847 : synonym of Ficus Röding, 1798

Distribution

Shell description

Genera

References

Further reading