''Prophysaon'',

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 ...

taildropper slugs, is a

genus Genus (; : genera ) is a taxonomic rank above species and below family (taxonomy), family as used in the biological classification of extant taxon, living and fossil organisms as well as Virus classification#ICTV classification, viruses. In bino ...

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 in the family

Ariolimacidae Ariolimacidae is a family (biology), family of air-breathing land slugs, terrestrial molluscs, terrestrial pulmonate gastropod mollusks in the superfamily Arionoidea (according to the Taxonomy of the Gastropoda (Bouchet & Rocroi, 2005), taxonomy ...

.MolluscaBase eds. (2021). MolluscaBase. Prophysaon Bland & W.G. Binney, 1873. Accessed through: World Register of Marine Species at: http://www.marinespecies.org/aphia.php?p=taxdetails&id=995729 on 2021-08-26 These slugs can self-amputate (

autotomy Autotomy (from the Greek ''auto-'', "self-" and ''tome'', "severing", αὐτοτομία) or 'self-amputation', is the behaviour whereby an animal sheds or discards an appendage, usually as a self-defense mechanism to elude a predator's grasp ...

) a portion of their tail.Rory J. Mc Donnel, Timothy D. Paine & Michael J. Gormally. 2009.
Slugs: A Guide to the Invasive and Native Fauna of California
''. 21 pp., . page 9 This autotomy has been observed in the species '' Prophysaon andersoni''.

Distribution

This genus of slugs occurs in North America, including California and Oregon.

Species

Species in the genus ''Prophysaon'' include 10 species (9 according to Turgeon et al. 1998 plus one known undescribed species): * '' Prophysaon andersoni'' (J. G. Cooper, 1872) - Reticulate Taildropper, Anderson's Taildropper Slug * '' Prophysaon boreale'' Pilsbry, 1948 - Northern Taildropper * '' Prophysaon coeruleum'' Cockerell, 1890 - Blue-Gray Taildropper * '' Prophysaon dubium'' Cockerell, 1890 - Papillose Taildropper * '' Prophysaon fasciatum'' Cockerell in W. G. Binney - Banded Taildropper * '' Prophysaon foliolatum'' (

Gould Gould may refer to: People * Gould (name), a surname Places United States * Gould, Arkansas, a city * Gould, Colorado, an unincorporated community * Gould, Ohio, an unincorporated community * Gould, Oklahoma, a town * Gould, West Virginia, an ...

, 1851) - Yellow-bordered Taildropper * '' Prophysaon humile'' Cockerell, 1890 - Smoky Taildropper * '' Prophysaon obscurum'' (Cockerell, 1890) - Mottled Taildropper * '' Prophysaon vanattae'' Pilsbry, 1948 - Scarlet-backed Taildropper ** ''Prophysaon vanattae'' var. ''pardalis'' * ''Prophysaon'' undescribed species from

Siskiyou County, California Siskiyou County ( ) is a county (United States), county located in the northwestern portion of the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, the population was 44,076. Its county seat is Yreka, California, Yre ...

.Roth B. & Sadeghian P. S. 2006. ''Checklist of the Land Snails and Slugs of California''. Contributions in Science 3.

Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History The Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History is a natural history museum in Santa Barbara, California. The Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History organization is a 501(c)(3) non-profit which operates both a flagship Mission Canyon campus locate ...

, California. 82 pp. ;Species brought into synonymy: * ''Prophysaon flavum'' Cockerell, 1890: synonym of ''Prophysaon andersonii'' (J.G. Cooper, 1872) * ''Prophysaon hemphilli'' Bland & W. G. Binney, 1873: synonym of ''Prophysaon andersonii'' (J.G. Cooper, 1872) * ''Prophysaon pacificum'' Cockerell, 1890: synonym of ''Prophysaon andersonii'' (J.G. Cooper, 1872)

References

External links

* information about ''Prophysaon andersoni'': http://www.livinglandscapes.bc.ca/cbasin/molluscs/arionidae.html * Wilke T. & Duncan N. 2004
''Phylogeographical patterns in the American Pacific Northwest: lessons from the arionid slug Prophysaon coeruleum''
Molecular Ecology, volume 13, issue 8, pages 2303–2315.
''Prophysaon'' sp. 1 A Terrestrial Slug

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Explorer. {{Authority control Ariolimacidae