Limacidae, also known by their
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 keelback slugs, are a
taxonomic
280px, Generalized scheme of taxonomy
Taxonomy is a practice and science concerned with classification or categorization. Typically, there are two parts to it: the development of an underlying scheme of classes (a taxonomy) and the allocation ...
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-sized to very large, 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 ...
mollusc
Mollusca is a phylum of protostome, protostomic invertebrate animals, whose members are known as molluscs or mollusks (). Around 76,000 extant taxon, extant species of molluscs are recognized, making it the second-largest animal phylum ...
s in the superfamily
Limacoidea
Limacoidea is a taxonomic superfamily of medium-sized to large, air-breathing land slugs and snails. They are terrestrial pulmonate gastropod mollusks in the infraorder Stylommatophora (according to the taxonomy of the Gastropoda by Bouchet & ...
.
Distribution
The distribution of the family Limacidae is the western
Palearctic
The Palearctic or Palaearctic is a biogeographic realm of the Earth, the largest of eight. Confined almost entirely to the Eastern Hemisphere, it stretches across Europe and Asia, north of the foothills of the Himalayas, and North Africa.
Th ...
.
There are 28 species of Limacidae in Russia and adjacent countries.
Anatomy
Cytology
In this family, 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 21 and 25 and also lies between 31 and 35 (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.
Taxonomy
2002 taxonomy
Zhiltsov & Schileyko (2002)
[ Zhiltsov S. S. & Schileyko A. A. (2002). "Morphology of reproductive system of ''Bielzia coerulans'' (Gastropoda, Pulmonata) and phylogenetic relations of the genus ''Bielzia''". ''Ruthenica'' 12: 73-79]
abstract
elevated the subfamily Bielziinae to family level, Bielziidae, based on the morphology of the
reproductive system
The reproductive system of an organism, also known as the genital system, is the biological system made up of all the anatomical organs involved in sexual reproduction. Many non-living substances such as fluids, hormones, and pheromones are al ...
of ''
Bielzia coerulans''.
2005 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 ...
were recognized in
the taxonomy of Bouchet & Rocroi (2005):
* subfamily Limacinae Lamarck, 1801 - synonyms: Limacopsidae Gerhardt, 1935; Bielziinae I. M. Likharev & Wiktor, 1980
* subfamily
Eumilacinae I. M. Likharev & Wiktor, 1980
Genera
Genera in the family Limacidae include:
subfamily Limacinae
* ''
Limax'' Linnaeus, 1758
- type genus of the family Limacidae
* ''
Limacus'' Lehmann, 1864; sometimes considered a subgenus of ''Limax''
* ''Bielzia'' Clessin, 1887 - with the only species ''
Bielzia coerulans'' M. Bielz, 1851. Some authors, for example Russian malacologists,
classify genus ''Bielzia'' within separate family Limacopsidae.
* ''
Caspilimax'' P. Hesse, 1926
[Kantor Yu I., Vinarski M. V., Schileyko A. A. & Sysoev A. V.(published online on December 22, 2009). "Catalogue of the continental mollusks of Russia and adjacent territories"]
Version 2.3.
/ref>
* '' Caucasolimax'' Likharev et Wiktor, 1980Gigantomilax lederi
''Gigantomilax'' is a genus of gastropods belonging to the family Limacidae.
The species of this genus are found in Mediterranean and Western Asia.
Species:
*''Gigantomilax benjaminus''
*''Gigantomilax borschomensis''
*''Gigantomilax brunneu ...
'' (Boettger, 1883)
** '' Gigantomilax majoricensis'' (Heynemann, 1863)[Wiktor A., Quintana J. & Beckmann K.-H. (2007). "Redescription of "''Limax majoricensis''" (Heynemann 1863) (Gastropoda: Pulmonata: Limacidae) from the Balearic Islands. pp. 187-197. In: Beckmann K.-H.: ''Die Land- und Süßwassermollusken der Balearischen Inseln''. ConchBooks, Hackenheim, 255 pp., .]
* '' Lehmannia'' Heynemann, 1862[Marshall, B. (2015). ''Ambigolimax'' Pollonera, 1887. Accessed through: World Register of Marine Species at http://www.marinespecies.org/aphia.php?p=taxdetails&id=819989 on 2015-04-15] sometimes considered a subgenus of ''Lehmannia''
* '' Limacopsis'' Simroth, 1888
* '' Malacolimax'' Malm, 1868
Cladogram
A cladogram
A cladogram (from Greek language, Greek ''clados'' "branch" and ''gramma'' "character") is a diagram used in cladistics to show relations among organisms. A cladogram is not, however, an Phylogenetic tree, evolutionary tree because it does not s ...
showing the phylogenic relationships of this family to other families within the limacoid clade
The Limacoidei is a taxonomic infraorder of air-breathing land snails, semislugs and slugs, terrestrial pulmonate gastropod molluscs in the suborder Helicina.
Distribution
The original ancestral area of limacoid families is thought to be ...
:[Hausdorf B. (2000). "Biogeography of the Limacoidea sensu lato (Gastropoda: Stylommatophora): Vicariance Events and Long-Distance Dispersal". '']Journal of Biogeography
The ''Journal of Biogeography'' is a monthly peer-reviewed scientific journal that was established in 1974. It covers aspects of spatial, ecological, and historical biogeography. The founding editor-in-chief was David Watts, followed by John Flen ...
'' 27(2): 379-390.
JSTOR
Ecology
Parasites of slugs in this family include larva
A larva (; : larvae ) is a distinct juvenile form many animals undergo before metamorphosis into their next life stage. Animals with indirect development such as insects, some arachnids, amphibians, or cnidarians typically have a larval phase ...
e of the marsh flies Sciomyzidae
The family (biology), family Sciomyzidae belongs to the typical flies (Brachycera) of the order (biology), order Fly, Diptera. They are commonly called marsh flies, and in some cases snail-killing flies due to the food of their larvae.
Here, t ...
, and others.
References
External links
Slugs of Florida
on the UF / IFAS Featured Creatures Web site
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