Aciculidae

The Aciculidae are a family of minute land snails which have opercula. (An operculum is a little door that closes the shell when the animal retracts into it.) In other words, Aciculidae are terrestrial operculate gastropods. Even though Aciculidae are land snails, they live in rather wet conditions, among mosses and dead leaves and they have sometimes been described as "winkles come ashore".

Taxonomy

Previously this family was placed in the infraorder Littorinimorpha, in the suborder Hypsogastropoda in the order Sorbeoconcha in the taxonomy of the Gastropoda by Ponder & Lindberg (1997).

The family Aciculidae is in the informal group Architaenioglossa, belonging to the clade Caenogastropoda, (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.

Genera

Genera within the family Aciculidae include:

• Abchasohela Hudec & Lezhawa, 1971^[1]
• Acicula W. Hartmann, 1821 - the needle snail, type genus
• Caziotia Pollonera, 1905^[2]
• Hyalacme Hesse, 1917^[3]
• Kainarella Starobogatov, 1972^[4]
• Menkia Boeters, E. Gittenberger & Subai, 1985
• Platyla Moquin-Tandon, 1856
• Pleuracme Kobelt, 1894^[5]
• Renea Nevill, 1880

References

1. ^ Hudec & Lezhawa, 1971 Arch. Molluskenk. 101: 194.
2. ^ Pollonera (1905). Boll. Mus. Zool. Anat. Comp. Torino 20(517): 2.
3. ^ Hesse (1917). NachrBl. dtsch. malak. Ges. 49: 124.
4. ^ Starobogatov (1972). Trudy zool. Inst. Leningr. 51: 167.
5. ^ Kobelt W. (1894) In: Rossmässler Iconogr. Moll. (N.F.) 7: 2.

• Horst Janus, 1965. The Young Specialist Looks at Land and Freshwater Molluscs, Burke, London