Albinaria Explained
Albinaria is a genus of air-breathing land snails, terrestrial pulmonate gastropod mollusks in the family Clausiliidae, called the door snails.[1]
Ecology and Life Cycle
These species of snails live on limestone rocks, where they feed on algae and lichen. They are known to be active during the rainy seasons, that is, in Mediterranean lowlands, from November to April. Eggs are laid shortly after the beginning of the wet season. It takes two to three wet seasons for development from a juvenile to a fully grown shell . During the intermittent dry seasons, both young and adult snails, aestivate ("the warm weather equivalent of hibernation"[2]) on the rocks or in crevices inside the rocks. For aestivation, aggregates are often formed, sometimes reaching sizes of many hundreds of individuals. During the last dry season prior to sexual maturation, the subadult snail (the shell of which is already fully developed, albeit thinner than that of an adult) increases the size of its genital organs. Copulation then takes place during the first weeks of autumn rains. Population densities can sometimes be very high, in spite of heavy predation by beetle larvae of the genus Drilus. These insects attack the snails during their aestivation, by perforating the shell and eating the snail inside.[3]
Distribution
Distribution of the genus Albinaria includes:
- southern Albania
- Greece
- Cyprus
- western and southern Turkey
- Lebanon
Species
Species in this genus include 111 species:[4]
- Albinaria adrianae Gittenberger, 1979
- Albinaria adriani (Gittenberger, 1987)
- Albinaria alajana (Boettger, 1896)
- Albinaria amalthea (Westerlund, 1878)
- Albinaria anatolica (Roth, 1839)
- Albinaria arcadica (Boettger, 1878)
- Albinaria argynnis (Westerlund, 1898)
- Albinaria ariadne Schilthuizen & Gittenberger, 1991
- Albinaria arthuriana (Boettger, 1878)
- Albinaria avia (Charpentier, 1852)
- Albinaria basalifera Neubert, 1992
- Albinaria bigibbosula (Westerlund, 1878)
- Albinaria brevicollis (Pfeiffer, 1850)
- Albinaria broemmei (Boettger, 1892)
- Albinaria butoti (Nordsieck, 1984)
- Albinaria caerulea (Deshayes, 1835)
- Albinaria campylauchen (Boettger, 1883)
- Albinaria candida (Pfeiffer, 1850)
- Albinaria cerigottana (Boettger, 1894)
- Albinaria christae Wiese, 1989
- Albinaria compressa (Pfeiffer, 1850)
- Albinaria confusa (Boettger, 1878)
- Albinaria contaminata (Rossmässler, 1835)
- Albinaria corrugata (Bruguière, 1792)
- Albinaria cretensis (Rossmässler, 1836)
- Albinaria cristatella (Küster, 1861)
- Albinaria cytherae (Boettger, 1894)
- Albinaria discolor (Pfeiffer, 1846)
- Albinaria eburnea (Pfeiffer, 1854)
- Albinaria edmundi (Gittenberger, 1987)
- Albinaria evelynae Gittenberger, 1998
- Albinaria forbesiana (Pfeiffer, 1846)
- Albinaria freytagi (Boettger, 1889)
- Albinaria fuchskaeufeli Nordsieck, 1977
- Albinaria gerolimena Nordsieck, 1974
- Albinaria grayana (Pfeiffer, 1846)
- Albinaria greeni Tomlin, 1935
- Albinaria grisea (Deshayes, 1835)
- Albinaria haessleini Fauer, 1978
- Albinaria hians (Boettger, 1878)
- Albinaria hippolyti (Boettger, 1878)
- Albinaria hohorsti Nordsieck, 1984
- Albinaria idaea (Pfeiffer, 1850)
- Albinaria idyllica (Gittenberger, 1987)
- Albinaria ietswaarti Gittenberger & Menkhorst, 1992
- Albinaria inauris (Boettger, 1896)
- Albinaria ithomensis Nordsieck, 1984
- Albinaria jaeckeli Wiese, 1989
- Albinaria janicollis Schultes & Wiese, 1991
- Albinaria janisadana Loosjes, 1955
- Albinaria jonica (Pfeiffer, 1866)
- Albinaria kemerensis Nordsieck, 1993
- Albinaria klemmi Paget, 1971
- Albinaria krueperi (Pfeiffer, 1866)
- Albinaria latelamellaris Neubert, Örstan & Welter-Schultes, 2000
- Albinaria lerosiensis (Pfeiffer, 1841)
- Albinaria li Welter-Schultes, 1999
- Albinaria linnei Gittenberger, 2008
- Albinaria litoraria Neubert, 1998
- Albinaria lycica Nordsieck, 1993
- Albinaria maculosa (Deshayes, 1835)
- Albinaria maltzani (Böttger, 1883)
- Albinaria manselli (Boettger, 1883)
- Albinaria mavromoustakisi Brandt, 1961
- Albinaria menelaus (Martens, 1873)
- Albinaria mixta Nordsieck, 1984
- Albinaria monocristata Neubert, 1992
- Albinaria moreletiana (Boettger, 1878)
- Albinaria munda (Rossmässler, 1836)
- Albinaria myrensis Nordsieck, 1993
- Albinaria nadimi Tohme & Tohme, 1988
- Albinaria nivea (Pfeiffer, 1854)
- Albinaria olivieri (Roth, 1839)
- Albinaria papillifera Nordsieck, 1993
- Albinaria pellucida Nordsieck, 1993
- Albinaria pelocarinata Gittenberger, 1994
- Albinaria percristata Nordsieck, 1993
- Albinaria petrosa (Pfeiffer, 1849)
- Albinaria praeclara (Pfeiffer, 1853)
- Albinaria profuga (Charpentier, 1852)
- Albinaria proteus (Boettger, 1889)
- Albinaria puella (Pfeiffer, 1850)
- Albinaria rebeli Wagner, 1924
- Albinaria rechingeri Paget, 1971
- Albinaria retusa (Olivier, 1801)
- Albinaria rollei (Boettger, 1896)
- Albinaria saxatilis (Pfeiffer, 1846)
- Albinaria schuetti Nordsieck, 1984
- Albinaria scopulosa (Charpentier, 1852)
- Albinaria senilis (Rossmässler, 1836)
- Albinaria solicola Neubert, 1998
- Albinaria sphakiota (Maltzan, 1887)
- Albinaria spratti (Pfeiffer, 1846)
- Albinaria staudingeri (Boettger, 1890)
- Albinaria sturanyi Wagner, 1924
- Albinaria subaii (Nordsieck, 1984)
- Albinaria sublamellosa (Boettger, 1883)
- Albinaria supercarinata Gittenberger & Menkhorst, 1992
- Albinaria tenuicostata (Pfeiffer, 1864)
- Albinaria terebra (Pfeiffer, 1853)
- Albinaria teres (Olivier, 1801)
- Albinaria thiesseae (Boettger, 1880)
- Albinaria torticollis (Olivier, 1801)
- Albinaria turrita (Pfeiffer, 1850)
- Albinaria violacea Schilthuizen & Gittenberger, 1990
- Albinaria virgo (Mousson, 1854)
- Albinaria voithii (Rossmässler, 1836)
- Albinaria wettsteini Fuchs & Käufel, 1936
- Albinaria wiesei Gittenberger, 1988
- Albinaria xanthostoma (Böttger, 1883)
- Albinaria zilchi Fauer, 1993
Further reading
- De Weerd . D. R. U. T. . Gittenberger . E. . 10.1111/j.1096-3642.2005.00154.x . Towards a monophyletic genus Albinaria (Gastropoda, Pulmonata): The first molecular study into the phylogenetic position of eastern Albinaria species . Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society . 143 . 4 . 531 . 2005 . free . .
- Kemperman Th. C. M. (1992). "Genitalia of Albinaria of the Ionian islands Kephallinia and Ithaka". In: Kemperman Th. C. M. Systematics and evolutionary history of the Albinaria species from the Ionian islands of Kephallinia and Ithaka (Gastropoda Pulmonata: Clausiliidae): 41–80. Leiden, thesis Leiden University.
- Schilthuizen M. & Gittenberger E. (1996). "Allozyme variation in some Cretan Albinaria (Gastropoda): paraphyletic species as natural phenomena". In: Taylor J. D. (ed.) Origin and evolutionary radiation of the Mollusca: 301–311. Oxford University Press, Oxford.
- Yamazaki . N. . Ueshima . R. . Terrett . J. A. . Yokobori . S. . Kaifu . M. . Segawa . R. . Kobayashi . T. . Numachi . K. . Ueda . T. . Nishikawa . K. . Watanabe . K. . Thomas . R. H. . Evolution of pulmonate gastropod mitochondrial genomes: Comparisons of gene organizations of Euhadra, Cepaea and Albinaria and implications of unusual tRNA secondary structures . Genetics . 145 . 3 . 749–758 . 1997 . 10.1093/genetics/145.3.749 . 9055084 . 1207859.
- 10.1666/0094-8373(2001)027<0348:SVIATL>2.0.CO;2. 0094-8373. 2001. 27. 348–368. Spatial variations inAlbinaria terebraland snail morphology in Crete (Pulmonata: Clausiliidae): Constraints for older and younger colonizations?. Welter-Schultes. F. W.. Paleobiology. 2. 85832001 . .
External links
- http://wwwuser.gwdg.de/~fwelter/research.htm
- http://www.animalbase.uni-goettingen.de/zooweb/servlet/AnimalBase/home/genus?id=1
Notes and References
- Schilthuizen, M., 1994. Differentiation and Hybridisation in a Polytypic Snail. PhD Thesis, Leiden University.
- Gould, S.J., 1985. The Flamingo's Smile; Reflections in Natural History. Norton, New York
- http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0100366 Baalbergen, E., R. Helwerda, R. Schelfhorst, R.F.Castillo Cajas, C.H.M. van Moorsel, R. Kundrata, F.W. Welter-Schultes, S. Giokas & M. Schilthuizen, 2014. Predator-prey interactions between shell-boring beetle larvae and rock-dwelling land snails. PLoS ONE, 9(6): e100366
- http://www.animalbase.uni-goettingen.de/zooweb/servlet/AnimalBase/list/species?taxongenus=468 Species in genus Albinaria
