Parmacellidae 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

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 ...

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 within the superfamily

Parmacelloidea Parmacelloidea is a Taxonomic rank, superfamily of air-breathing land slugs, terrestrial molluscs, terrestrial pulmonate gastropod Mollusc, mollusks in the clade Stylommatophora and the informal group Pulmonata. These are limacoid or keelback slu ...

(according to the taxonomy of the Gastropoda by Bouchet & Rocroi, 2005). This family has no subfamilies (according to the taxonomy of the Gastropoda by Bouchet & Rocroi, 2005). Slugs in this family make and use

love darts A love dart (also known as a gypsobelum, shooting darts, or just as darts) is a sharp, calcium carbonate, calcareous or chitinous Dart (missile), dart which some hermaphroditic land snails and slugs create. Love darts are both formed and stor ...

made of

chitin Chitin (carbon, C8hydrogen, H13oxygen, O5nitrogen, N)n ( ) is a long-chain polymer of N-Acetylglucosamine, ''N''-acetylglucosamine, an amide derivative of glucose. Chitin is the second most abundant polysaccharide in nature (behind only cell ...

Distribution

The distribution of the family Parmacellidae includes 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 ...

, and ranges from the

Canary Islands The Canary Islands (; ) or Canaries are an archipelago in the Atlantic Ocean and the southernmost Autonomous communities of Spain, Autonomous Community of Spain. They are located in the northwest of Africa, with the closest point to the cont ...

and Europe to

Afghanistan Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. It is bordered by Pakistan to the Durand Line, east and south, Iran to the Afghanistan–Iran borde ...

."Family summary for Parmacellidae"

AnimalBase AnimalBase is a project brought to life in 2004 and is maintained by the University of Göttingen, Germany. The goal of the AnimalBase project is to digitize early zoological literature, provide copyright-free open access to zoological works, and p ...

, last modified 21 February 2009, accessed 1 September 2010.

Genera

Genera within family Parmacellidae include: * '' Candaharia'' Godwin-Austen, 1888Kantor 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> ** subgenus '' Levanderiella'' Schileyko, 2007Schileyko A. A. (2007). "''Levanderiella'', a new name for ''Levanderia'' Likharev et Wiktor, 1980 (Pulmonata, Parmacellidae)". ''Ruthenica'' 17(1-2): 84
PDF
* '' Cryptella'' Webb & Berthelot, 1833Parmacellidae

Fauna Europaea Fauna Europaea is a database of the scientific names and distribution of all living multicellular European land and fresh-water animals. It serves as a standard taxonomic source for animal taxonomy within the Pan-European Species directories Infr ...

, accessed 19 November 2009. * ''

Parmacella ''Parmacella'' is a genus of air-breathing land slugs, terrestrial molluscs, terrestrial gastropod mollusks in the family Parmacellidae. Slugs within this genus create and use love darts. Species Species within the genus ''Parmacella'' include: ...

'' Cuvier, 1804 - type genus

Cladogram

The following

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 In biology, phylogenetics () is the study of the evolutionary history of life using observable characteristics of organisms (or genes), which is known as phylogenetic inference. It infers the relationship among organisms based on empirical data ...

relationship of this family with the other families 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. (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

Distribution

Genera

Cladogram

References

Further reading