''Zonites'' 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 mostly 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 ...

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

Zonitidae Zonitidae, common name the true glass snails, are a family of mostly rather small, air-breathing land snails, terrestrial pulmonate gastropod mollusks in the superfamily Zonitoidea. Zonitidae is the only family in the superfamily Zonitoidea. T ...

.Zonites, with the same type species The genus Zonites, which includes 26 extant species, is distributed in the northeastern Mediterranean area and exhibits significant diversity and endemism.

Description

The

shell Shell may refer to: Architecture and design * Shell (structure), a thin structure ** Concrete shell, a thin shell of concrete, usually with no interior columns or exterior buttresses Science Biology * Seashell, a hard outer layer of a marine ani ...

of species in this genus is more or less transparent, subdepressed and contains an

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 ...

. The

aperture In optics, the aperture of an optical system (including a system consisting of a single lens) is the hole or opening that primarily limits light propagated through the system. More specifically, the entrance pupil as the front side image o ...

is semilunar and usually lacks teeth. The outer lip is thin and sharp. The animal is elongate and is able to retract completely within its shell. It has a more or less developed

caudal mucous pit The caudal mucous pit, or caudal mucous horn, is an anatomical structure on the tail end of the foot of various land snails and slugs, terrestrial animal, terrestrial pulmonate gastropod mollusc, mollusks. The function of this pit is the resor ...

. The mantle lobes are small and not reflected on to the shell. The genital orifice is somewhat distant from the right

tentacle In zoology, a tentacle is a flexible, mobile, and elongated organ present in some species of animals, most of them invertebrates. In animal anatomy, tentacles usually occur in one or more pairs. Anatomically, the tentacles of animals work main ...

. The jaw is marked by a median rostrum. The lateral teeth of the

radula The radula (; : radulae or radulas) is an anatomical structure used by mollusks for feeding, sometimes compared to a tongue. It is a minutely toothed, chitinous ribbon, which is typically used for scraping or cutting food before the food enters ...

are bicuspidate, while the marginal teeth are sharp and narrowly unicuspidate.

Species

Species within the genus ''Zonites'' include:"Species in genus ''Zonites''"

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 ...

, accessed 22 June 2010. * ''

Zonites algirus ''Zonites algirus'' is a species of air-breathing land snail, a terrestrial pulmonate gastropod mollusc in the family Zonitidae.MolluscaBase eds. (2023). MolluscaBase. Zonites algirus (Linnaeus, 1758). Accessed through: World Register of Marine S ...

'' (Linnaeus, 1758) - type species * '' Zonites anaphiensis'' Riedel & Mylonas, 1981 * '' Zonites astakidae'' Riedel, 1985 * † '' Zonites beckerplateni'' Schütt, 1985 * '' Zonites beydaglariensis'' A. Riedel, 1982 * † '' Zonites boisteli'' Depéret, 1895 * '' Zonites caricus'' (Roth, 1839) * '' Zonites casius'' Martens, 1889 * '' Zonites chloroticus'' (Pfeiffer, 1851) * '' Zonites embolium'' Fuchs & Käufel, 1936 ** ''Zonites embolium elevatus'' Riedel & Mylonas, 1997 - extinct * '' Zonites euboeicus'' Kobelt, 1878 * '' Zonites festai'' Pollonera, 1916 * '' Zonites goldfussi'' Westerlund, 1890 * '' Zonites graecus'' Kobelt, 1876 * '' Zonites humilis'' Riedel, 1982 * '' Zonites invitus'' Riedel & Mylonas, 1995 * '' Zonites kobelti'' Boettger, 1898 * '' Zonites labiosus'' Westerlund, 1893 * '' Zonites messenicus'' Zilch, 1965 * '' Zonites nautarum'' Riedel & Mylonas, 1995 * '' Zonites nikariae'' Pfeffer, 1930 * '' Zonites nisyrius'' Riedel & Mylonas, 1997 * '' Zonites oertzeni'' Martens, 1889 * '' Zonites osmanicus'' Riedel, 1987 * '' Zonites parnonensis'' Riedel, 1985 * '' Zonites pergranulatus'' Kobelt, 1878 * '' Zonites rhodius'' Martens, 1889 * '' Zonites santoriniensis'' Riedel & Norris, 1987 - extinctFontaine B., Bouchet P., Van Achterberg K., Alonso-Zarazaga M. A., Araujo R. et al. (2007). "The European union’s 2010 target: Putting rare species in focus." ''Biological Conservation'' 139: 167-185. Table 2 on the page 173.
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* '' Zonites sariae'' Riedel, 1985 * † '' Zonites siphnicus'' Fuchs & Käufel, 1936 - extinct * '' Zonites smyrnensis'' (Roth, 1839) In the course of time many species have been included in the genus ''Zonites'' that have become taxa inquirenda or synonyms that now belong to different other genera.

References

* Bank, R. A. (2017). Classification of the Recent terrestrial Gastropoda of the World. Last update: July 16, 2017

External links

Montfort P. (Denys de). (1808-1810). Conchyliologie systématique et classification méthodique des coquilles. Paris: Schoell. Vol. 1

Hesse, P. (1910). Kritische Fragmente. VIII. Helix granulata Roth. IX. Das Genus Zonites Montf. Nachrichtsblatt der Deutschen Malakozoologischen Gesellschaft. 42(4): 165-169. Frankfurt am Main

Held, F. (1837-1838). Notizen über die Weichthiere Bayerns. Isis (Oken), 30 (4): 303-309 (1837); 30 (12): 901-919 (1838). Leipzig

Semper, C. (1870-1885). Reisen im Archipel der Philippinen, Theil 2. Wissenschaftliche Resultate. Band 3, Landmollusken. Wiesbaden: Kreidel.
{{Taxonbar, from=Q8073997 Gastropod genera Taxonomy articles created by Polbot