''Minaselates paradoxa'' is a species 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 ...

, a

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 ...

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 ...

in the

subfamily 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 zo ...

Epiphragmophorinae. MolluscaBase eds. (2021). MolluscaBase. Minaselates Cuezzo & Pena, 2017. Accessed through: World Register of Marine Species at: http://marinespecies.org/aphia.php?p=taxdetails&id=991577 on 2021-02-25 It is the sole representative of the

monospecific In biology, a monotypic taxon is a taxonomic group (taxon) that contains only one immediately subordinate taxon. A monotypic species is one that does not include subspecies or smaller, infraspecific taxa. In the case of genera, the term "unispe ...

genus ''Minaselates'', described from the

Cavernas do Peruaçu National Park Cavernas do Peruaçu National Park () is a national park in the state of Minas Gerais, Brazil. It is noted for its large limestone caves. Location The Cavernas do Peruaçu National Park, with an area of , was created on 21 September 1999 and is ...

in southeastern Brazil.

Taxonomy and phylogeny

''Minaselates'' is a

genus erected to harbor ''Minaselates paradoxa'', and one of the seven genera currently included in the family Epiphragmophoridae. It is apparently closely related to the genus '' Epiphragmophora'', but its shell can be distinguished by the

protoconch A protoconch (meaning first or earliest or original shell) is an embryonic or larval shell which occurs in some classes of molluscs, e.g., the initial chamber of an ammonite or the larval shell of a gastropod. In older texts it is also called " ...

sculpture, outline of the apex, complex

teleoconch The gastropod shell is part of the body of many gastropods, including snails, a kind of mollusc. The shell is an exoskeleton, which protects from predators, mechanical damage, and dehydration, but also serves for muscle attachment and calcium ...

microsculpture and closed

umbilicus Umbilicus may refer to: *The navel or belly button *Umbilicus (mollusc), a feature of gastropod, Nautilus and Ammonite shell anatomy *Umbilicus (plant), ''Umbilicus'' (plant), a genus of over ninety species of perennial flowering plants *Umbilicus ...

fused with the shell wall. Regarding the soft parts, the presence of a long and thin kidney that extends more than half the length of the pulmonary cavity, as well as a flagellar caecum and a smooth jaw also distinguish ''Minaselates'' from ''Epiphragmophora''.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q30682476 Xanthonychidae Gastropods described in 2017 Monotypic gastropod genera