Limacoidea is a taxonomic superfamily of medium-sized to 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 and snails. They are 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 infraorder Stylommatophora (according to the taxonomy of the Gastropoda by Bouchet & Rocroi, 2005). The Helixarionoidea were previously placed in this superfamily.

Families

The following four

families Family (from ) is a group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or affinity (by marriage or other relationship). It forms the basis for social order. Ideally, families offer predictability, structure, and safety as ...

have been recognized in the taxonomy of Bouchet & Rocroi (2005): * Limacidae *

Agriolimacidae ''Agriolimacidae'' is a family of small and medium-sized land slugs, or shell-less snails, terrestrial pulmonate gastropod mollusks. Distribution Distribution of Limacidae is Holarctic, this include: Nearctic, western Palearctic and eastern P ...

Boettgerillidae ''Boettgerilla'' is a genus of air-breathing land slugs, terrestrial pulmonate gastropod molluscs in the family Boettgerillidae. The generic name ''Boettgerilla'' is named after the German malacologist Oskar Boettger. Taxonomy ''Boettgerilla ...

Vitrinidae Vitrinidae is a family (biology), family of small, air-breathing land snails and semi-slugs, terrestrial molluscs, terrestrial pulmonate gastropod mollusc, mollusks in the superfamily Limacoidea (according to the Taxonomy of the Gastropoda (Bouc ...

Cladogram

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 ...

shows the phylogenic relation of this superfamily to other superfamilies in 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. (March 2000). "Biogeography of the Limacoidea sensu lato (Gastropoda: Stylommatophora): Vicariance Events and Long-Distance Dispersal". '' Journal of Biogeography'' 27(2): 379-390.
JSTOR

Families

Cladogram

References

Further reading