Lanistes

Lanistes
Drawing of an apertural view of the shell of Lanistes ovum
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Mollusca
Class: Gastropoda
(unranked): clade Caenogastropoda

informal group Architaenioglossa

Superfamily: Ampullarioidea
Family: Ampullariidae
Subfamily: Ampullariinae
Tribe: Ampullariini
Genus: Lanistes
Montfort, 1810[1]
Type species
Lanistes carinatus (Olivier, 1804).
Diversity[2][3][4]
21 extant species
and at least 10 fossil species
Synonyms

former subgenera:
Meladomus Swainson, 1840[5]
Leroya Grandidier, 1887[6]

Lanistes is a genus of freshwater snails which have a gill and an operculum, aquatic gastropod mollusks in the family Ampullariidae, the apple snails.

Distribution

The distribution of the genus Lanistes includes Africa and Madagascar.[3]

Description

Lanistes has a unique anatomy among the Ampullariidae: it has a "hyperstrophic" sinistral shell.[7] This means that the body of the snail is dextral (as in all other ampullariids), but the shell appears to be sinistral.[7] However the sinistral appearance stems from the fact that the rotation of the shell as it grows is in an upward direction rather than the usual downward direction.[7]

Species

Three[3] subgenera have been recognized, based on shell differences: Lanistes sensu stricto, Meladomus and Leroya. These subgenera are not used in recent works.[3]

Extant species within the genus Lanistes include:

Fossil species within the genus Lanistes include:

References

  1. Montfort P. D. de (1810). Conch. Syst. 2: 122.
  2. 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 2.7 2.8 2.9 2.10 2.11 2.12 2.13 2.14 2.15 2.16 "Lanistes". The apple snail website, accessed 16 May 2011.
  3. 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 3.6 3.7 3.8 3.9 3.10 3.11 3.12 3.13 3.14 3.15 3.16 3.17 3.18 3.19 3.20 3.21 3.22 3.23 3.24 3.25 3.26 Brown D. S. (1994). Freshwater Snails of Africa and their Medical Importance. Taylor & Francis. ISBN 0-7484-0026-5.
  4. 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 4.5 4.6 4.7 4.8 4.9 4.10 van Damme D. & Pickford M. (1995). "The late Cenozoic ampullariidae (mollusca, gastropoda) of the Albertine Rift Valley (Uganda-Zaire)". Hydrobiologia 316(1): 1-32. doi:10.1007/BF00019372.
  5. Swainson (1840). Treat. Malacol., page 340.
  6. Grandidier (1887). Bull. Soc. malac. France 4: 191.
  7. 7.0 7.1 7.2 "Shell". The apple snail website, accessed 16 May 2011.

External links