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Staffordiidae

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Staffordiidae
A drawing of an apertural view of a shell of Staffordia daflaensis
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Mollusca
Class: Gastropoda
Order: Stylommatophora
Suborder: Helicina
Infraorder: Limacoidei
Superfamily: Trochomorphoidea
Family: Staffordiidae
Thiele, 1931[1]
Families

See text

Staffordiidae is a family of air-breathing land snails, terrestrial pulmonate gastropod mollusks in the superfamily Trochomorphoidea.[2]

Staffordiidae is the only family in the superfamily Staffordioidea. This family has no subfamilies (according to the taxonomy of the Gastropoda by Bouchet & Rocroi, 2005).

Staffordiidae is a poorly understood[3] family, because it occurs only in the Dafla Hills area of India. The fauna and flora of that area has not been researched sufficiently.[3]

Various sources consider the family Staffordiidae as part of Dyakiidae[4] or Ariophantidae/Dyakiinae.[5]

Distribution

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The distribution of the Staffordiidae includes only India in the Dafla Hills.[3]

This area is close to northern margin of the Indian Plate.[3] The historical area of origin of the Staffordiidae has not been researched because the coastal area in southern Asia where it is found became uninhabitable[3] after the Indian Plate and Eurasian Plate collided 50 to 55 million years ago. The original ancestral area of limacoid families is thought to be the Palaearctic region and south-eastern Asia.[3] Thus, it has been hypothesized that the Staffordiidae colonized its current area from the southern margin of the Asian part of the Eurasian Plate during the Oligocene period.[3]

Genera

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Genera within the family Staffordiidae include:

The generic name Staffordia is in honor of Brigadier-General Stafford,[who?] who was in command of the punitive force which entered the Dafla Hills for the first time in the winter of 1874–1875.[6]

The foot of Staffordia is pointed.[6] The peripodial margin is simple with a narrow pale margin.[6] There are small right and left shell-lobes.[6]

Reproductive system of Staffordia: the dart-sac is small, globose, with a long cord-like attachment to a coronal gland.[6] The penis is simple.[6] The spermatheca is long.[6]

The radula of Staffordia has aculeate lateral teeth.[6]

Comparison of shells of three Staffordia species:

Staffordia daflaensis
type specimen of Staffordia staffordi is juvenile
type specimen of Staffordia toruputuensis is juvenile

Cladogram

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Staffordiidae is considered a sister group of all other families in the limacoid clade.[3]

The following cladogram shows the phylogenic relationships of this family and superfamily to the other families within the limacoid clade:[3]

 limacoid clade 

References

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This article incorporates public domain text from the reference.[6]

  1. ^ Thiele J. (1931). Handbuch der systematischen Weichtierkunde Fischer, Jena, 1(2): 632.
  2. ^ a b MolluscaBase eds. (2021). MolluscaBase. Staffordiidae Thiele, 1931. Accessed through: World Register of Marine Species at: http://marinespecies.org/aphia.php?p=taxdetails&id=994727 on 2021-02-22
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i Hausdorf B. (2000). "Biogeography of the Limacoidea sensu lato (Gastropoda: Stylommatophora): Vicariance Events and Long-Distance Dispersal". Journal of Biogeography 27(2): 379–390. doi:10.1046/j.1365-2699.2000.00403.x, JSTOR.
  4. ^ Barker G. M. (2001) Gastropods on Land: Phylogeny, Diversity and Adaptive Morphology. 1–146. In: Barker G. M. (ed.) (2001) The biology of terrestrial molluscs. CABI Publishing, Oxon, UK, cited pages: 139–144. ISBN 0-85199-318-4.
  5. ^ a b c d Ramakrishna, Dey A. & Mitra S. C. (PDF created 6 April 2010). "Checklist of Indian Land Mollusca" Archived 17 September 2013 at the Wayback Machine. Zoological Survey of India. accessed 30 June 2010. 65 pp.
  6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Godwin-Austen H. H. (1907). Land and freshwater mollusca of India, including South Arabia, Baluchistan, Afghanistan, Kashmir, Nepal, Burma, Pegu, Tenasserim, Malaya Peninsula, Ceylon and other islands of the Indian Ocean; Supplementary to Masers Theobald and Hanley's Conchologica Indica. Taylor and Francis, London. 2: page 184, plate CXIII.
  • Bouchet P., Rocroi J.P., Hausdorf B., Kaim A., Kano Y., Nützel A., Parkhaev P., Schrödl M. & Strong E.E. (2017). Revised classification, nomenclator and typification of gastropod and monoplacophoran families. Malacologia. 61(1-2): 1-526

Further reading

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  • Schileyko A. A. (2003). "Treatise on recent terrestrial pulmonate mollusks. 10. Ariophantidae, Ostracolethaidae, Ryssotidae, Milacidae, Dyakiidae, Staffordiidae, Gastrodontidae, Zonitidae, Daudebardiidae, Parmacellidae". Ruthenica, Supplement 2. 1309–1466.