Kingdom Animalia Class Gastropoda | Phylum Mollusca Rank Family | |
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Superfamily Staffordioidea
Thiele, 1931 People also search for Helicarionoidea, Gastrodontoidea | ||
Staffordiidae is a family of air-breathing land snails, terrestrial pulmonate gastropod mollusks in the superfamily Staffordioidea (according to the taxonomy of the Gastropoda by Bouchet & Rocroi, 2005).
Contents
Staffordiidae is the only family in the superamily Staffordioidea. This family has no subfamilies (according to the taxonomy of the Gastropoda by Bouchet & Rocroi, 2005).
Staffordiidae is a poorly understood family, because it occurs only in the Dafla Hills area of India. The fauna and flora of that area has not been researched sufficiently.
Various sources consider the family Staffordiidae as part of Dyakiidae or Ariophantidae/Dyakiinae.
Distribution
The distribution of the Staffordiidae includes only India in the Dafla Hills.
This area is close to northern margin of the Indian plate. 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 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. 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.
Genera
Genera within the family Staffordiidae include:
The generic name Staffordia is in honor of Brigadier-General Stafford, who was in command of the punitive force which entered the Dafla Hills for the first time in the winter of 1874-1875.
The foot of Staffordia is pointed. The peripodial margin is simple with a narrow pale margin. There are small right and left shell-lobes.
Reproductive system of Staffordia: the dart-sac is small, globose, with a long cord-like attachment to a coronal gland. The penis is simple. The spermatheca is long.
The radula of Staffordia has aculeate lateral teeth.
Comparison of shells of three Staffordia species:
Cladogram
Staffordiidae is considered a sister group of all other families in the limacoid clade.
The following cladogram shows the phylogenic relationships of this family and superfamily to the other families within the limacoid clade: