Vertiginidae

Vertiginidae
Temporal range: Upper Paleocene-recent[1]
A live individual of Vertigo moulinsiana
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Mollusca
Class: Gastropoda
(unranked): clade Heterobranchia

clade Euthyneura
clade Panpulmonata
clade Eupulmonata
clade Stylommatophora
clade Orthurethra

Superfamily: Pupilloidea
Family: Vertiginidae
Fitzinger, 1833
Diversity[1]
93–95 species

Vertiginidae, common name the whorl snails, is a family of minute, air-breathing land snails, terrestrial pulmonate gastropod molluscs or micromollusks in the superfamily Pupilloidea.[2]

Distribution

The distribution of the Vertiginidae is in the Northern Hemisphere: North America (60 species), Eurasia (30 species), North and central Africa (3-5 species).[1] That gives a total of approximately 93-95 species.

Ecology

Snails in this family inhabit habitats ranging from forests to semi-open and open habitats with various different kinds of substrate cover, vegetation and humidity.[1] They feed on microflora - bacteria and fungi - growing on dead and living plants.[1]

Taxonomy

The following three subfamilies were recognized in the taxonomy of Bouchet & Rocroi (2005):[2]

Genera

Genera in the family Vertiginidae include:

Subfamily Vertigininae

Tribe Vertiginini

Tribe Truncatellinini

Subfamily Gastrocoptinae

Subfamily Nesopupinae

Subfamily ?

References

This article incorporates public domain text from the reference.[1]

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Family summary for Vertiginidae. AnimalBase, last modified 03-09-2006, accessed 23 June 2009.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Bouchet P., Rocroi J.-P., Frýda J., Hausdorf B., Ponder W., Valdés Á. & Warén A. (2005). "Classification and nomenclator of gastropod families". Malacologia: International Journal of Malacology (Hackenheim, Germany: ConchBooks) 47 (1-2): 1–397. ISBN 3-925919-72-4. ISSN 0076-2997.
  3. 1 2 3 "Mollusca". Diversidad Biológica Cubana, accessed 23 March 2011.
  4. Sterkia clementina. NatureServe Explorer, accessed 1 August 2010.

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Vertiginidae.
This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the Friday, December 06, 2013. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.