Trochulus Villosulus
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''Trochulus'' 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 small 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 ...
s,
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 ...
mollusks in the subfamily Trochulininae of the family Hygromiidae, the hairy snails and their allies.


Taxonomy

''Trichia'' Hartmann, 1840 is a junior synonym of ''Trochulus'' Chemnitz, 1786. Nearly every malacological work prior to 2006 used the name ''Trichia'' instead of the (now considered valid) name ''Trochulus''. The genus ''Plicuteria'' Schileyko, 1978 has been once recognized as a subgenus within ''Trochulus'' by Schileyko (1978). Based on molecular analyses, ''Trochulus lubomirski'' does not belong to the genus ''Trochulus''. ''Trochulus lubomirski'' (Ślósarski, 1881) is now recognized as ''Plicuteria lubomirskii'' (Ślósarski, 1881).


Species

The speciation centre for the genus ''Trochulus'' is in the Alps. The type species of this genus is ''Trochulus hispidus''. Species within the genus ''Trochulus'' include: * ''Trochulus alpicola'' (Eder, 1921) * ''Trochulus ataxiacus'' (Fagot, 1884) * ''Trochulus biconicus'' (Eder, 1917) - synonym: ''Trichia biconica'' * ''Trochulus glyptus'' (Locard, 1880) - synonym: ''Trochulus caelatus'' (Studer, 1820) - synonym: ''Trichia caelata'' * ''Trochulus clandestinus'' (Hartmann, 1821) * ''Trochulus coelomphala'' (Locard, 1888) * ''Trochulus graminicola'' (Falkner, 1973) - synonym: ''Trichia gramnicola'' * ''Trochulus hispidus'' (Carl Linnaeus, Linnaeus, 10th edition of Systema Naturae, 1758) - synonyms: ''Trichia hispida'' (Carl Linnaeus, Linnaeus, 10th edition of Systema Naturae, 1758), ''Trochulus sericeus'' (Draparnaud, 1801) * ''Trochulus montanus'' (Studer, 1820) * ''Trochulus phorochaetius'' (Bourguignat, 1864) * ''Trochulus plebeius'' (Draparnaud, 1805) - synonym: ''Trichia plebeia'' * ''Trochulus striolatus'' (C. Pfeiffer, 1828) - synonym: ''Trichia striolata'' * ''Trochulus suberectus'' (Clessin, 1878) * ''Trochulus villosus'' (Draparnaud, 1805) * ''Trochulus villosulus'' - (Rossmässler, 1838) - synonym: ''Trichia villosula'' (Rossmässler, 1838) ;Species brought into synonymy: * ''Trochulus erjaveci'' (Brusina, 1870): synonym of ''Xerocampylaea erjaveci'' (Brusina, 1870) * ''Trochulus lubomirskii'' (Ślósarski, 1881): synonym of ''Plicuteria lubomirskii'' (Ślósarski, 1881) * ''Trochulus oreinos'' (Wagner, 1915): synonym of ''Noricella oreinos'' (Wagner, 1915) * ''Trochulus waldemari'' (Wagner, 1912): synonym of ''Xerocampylaea waldemari'' (Wagner, 1912)


Hair on shells

The periostracum of the gastropod shell, shells of most ''Trochulus'' species has hair-like features. Some of the hair-less species do possess hairs as juveniles. Hairy shells appeared to be the Plesiomorph, ancestral character state in the genus ''Trochulus'', a feature which has most probably been lost three times independently. These losses were correlated with a shift from humid to dry habitats, indicating an adaptive function of hairs in moist environments. It had been previously hypothesised that these costly protein structures of the outer shell layer facilitate locomotion in moist habitats. Experiments by Pfenninger et al. (2005) showed an increased adherence of haired shells to wet surfaces. The possession of hairs facilitates the adherence of the snails to their herbaceous food plants during foraging, when humidity levels are high. The absence of hairs in some ''Trochulus'' species could thus be explained as a loss of the potential adaptive function linked to habitat shifts.


Feeding habits

''Trochulus'' species in moist habitats prefer to forage on large-leaved herbaceous plants like ''Adenostyles'', ''Urtica'' (nettles), ''Homogyne'' or ''Tussilago'' (coltsfoot etc).


References

This article incorporates CC-BY-2.0 text from reference.


Further reading

* * Hrabáková M., Juřičková L. & Petrušek A. (2006)
Taxonomy of the genus ''Trochulus'' (Gastropoda: Hygromiidae) in the Czech Republic
. * * {{Taxonbar, from=Q31130 Hygromiidae Gastropod genera Taxonomy articles created by Polbot