Arionidae, common name the "roundback slugs" or "round back slugs" are a taxonomic family of air-breathing land slugs, terrestrial pulmonate gastropod mollusks in the superfamily Arionoidea.
| Arionidae Temporal range:
| |
|---|---|
| |
| A live individual of the Spanish slug Arion vulgaris, in the wild | |
Scientific classification 
| |
| Domain: | Eukaryota |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Mollusca |
| Class: | Gastropoda |
| Order: | Stylommatophora |
| Superfamily: | Arionoidea |
| Family: | Arionidae J.E. Gray, 1840[2] |
| Synonyms | |
|
Tetraspididae Hagenmüller, 1885 | |
Distribution
editThe distribution of this family of slugs includes Nearctic, Palearctic and Oriental regions.[1]
Anatomy
editUnlike some slugs, European Arionidae have no keel on the back.[1] The caudal mucous pit is above the tip of the tail.[1] The respiratory pore (pneumostome) is in front of the midpoint of the mantle.[1] The body length is up to 250 mm.[1] The mantle covers only a part of the body and lies in the anterior part.[1]
The jaw is odontognathic,[1] which means it is transversally ribbed. Radular teeth include: central tricuspid, lateral bi- or tricuspid, marginal bicuspid, all having broad bases.[1] Teeth are often accreted.[1] The digestive system forms 2 loops.[1] The heart, in relation to body axis, is titled to the left.[1] The kidney is circular (surrounding aorta).[1] Cephalic retractors tend to divide into separate branches attached independently to the posterior part of pallial complex.[1] The shell is strongly reduced in places, most often completely buried in the mantle, usually of loose crystals or plate-like.[1] Genitalia: the penis is present only in some species, epiphallus is present in nearly all of them.[1] Male copulatory organs are generally reduced, their role being taken over by a well-developed atrium and the epiphallus that produces spermatophores.[1]
In this family, the number of haploid chromosomes lies between 21 and 30 (according to the values in this table).[3]
Genera
editFamily Arionidae has no subfamilies according to the taxonomy of the Gastropoda by Bouchet & Rocroi, 2005.
The type genus of the family is Arion Férussac, 1819
Genera within the family Arionidae include:
- Anadenulus Cockerell, 1890[4]
- Arion Férussac, 1819
- Ariunculus Lessona, 1881
- Carinacauda Leonard, Chichester, Richart & Young, 2011[5]
- Geomalacus Allman, 1843
- Gliabates Webb, 1959[6]
- Hesperarion Simroth, 1891[7]
- Letourneuxia Bourguignat, 1866
- Magnipelta Pilsbry, 1953[8]
- Prophysaon Bland & W. G. Binney, 1873[9]
- Securicauda Leonard, Chichester, Richart & Young, 2011[5]
- Udosarx Webb, 1959[10]
- Zacoleus Pilsbry, 1903[11]
Parasites
editThe parasites of the Arionidae slugs include the Sciomyzidae.
References
editThis article incorporates public domain text from the reference.[1]
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r "Family summary for Arionidae". AnimalBase, last change 12-06-2009, accessed 4 August 2010.
- ^ Gray, J.E. (1840). "[Shells of molluscous animals]". Synopsis of the contents of the British Museum (42 ed.). London: British Museum. p. 148.
- ^ Barker G. M.: Gastropods on Land: Phylogeny, Diversity and Adaptive Morphology. in Barker G. M. (ed.): The biology of terrestrial molluscs. CABI Publishing, Oxon, UK, 2001, ISBN 0-85199-318-4. 1-146, cited pages: 139 and 142. (In the reference specified as Ariononae.)
- ^ Cockerell (1890). Ann. Mag. nat. Hist. (6)6: 278.
- ^ a b Leonard, William P.; Chichester, Lyle; Richart, Casey H.; Young, Tiffany A. (2011). "Securicauda hermani and Carinacauda stormi, two new genera and species of slug from the Pacific Northwest of the United States (Gastropoda: Stylommatophora: Arionidae), with notes on Gliabates oregonius Webb 1959" (PDF). Zootaxa. 2746: 43–56. doi:10.11646/zootaxa.2746.1.4.
- ^ Webb (1959). Gastropodia 1(3): 22.
- ^ Simroth (1891). Malak. Bl. (N.S.) 11: 111.
- ^ Pilsbry H. A. (1953). Nautilus 67: 37.
- ^ Bland & Binney W. G. (1873). Ann. Lyceum nat. Hist. N. York 10(3): 921.
- ^ Webb (1959). Gastropodia 1: 22.
- ^ Pilsbry H. A. (1903). Proc. Acad. nat. Sci. Philad. 55: 626.
External links
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