Fig snails
| Fig snails | ||||||||||||
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| Ficidae | ||||||||||||
| Meek , 1864 |
The fig snails (Ficidae) are a family of marine snails found in shallow tropical seas. They are predatory and eat polychaetes .
features
The cases are right-handed and low-tapered. The mouth is long and narrow. The lower end is usually drawn out into a long siphon channel. The adult size of the housing ranges from about 4 to 13 cm. They are usually almost completely covered by two mantle lobes. The foot is relatively large, as is the propodium . There is no operculum . The head is small with tentacles ; the eyes sit on their basal thickenings. The animals are of separate sex. The early development has hardly been studied. The few available findings indicate a yolk-rich development (hatching of small finished animals, no Veliger larvae).
Way of life
The representatives of the family live on sandy and muddy bottoms in the tidal area and shallow water near the coast. Few species penetrate deeper areas (up to 800 m). The animals move with their big feet over the sediment and hunt polychaetes there.
Systematics
The further systematic subdivision of the family is uncertain. There are up to four genera or sub-genera (of Ficus ):
- Ficidae Meek, 1864
- Ficus (snail) Röding, 1798
- Fulguroficus Grabau, 1904 (mostly only considered as a subgenus of Ficus )
- Priscoficus Conrad, 1866 (mostly only considered as a subgenus of Ficus )
- Ficopsis Conrad, 1864 (mostly only considered as a subgenus of Ficus )
literature
- Philippe Bouchet, Jean-Pierre Rocroi: Part 2. Working classification of the Gastropoda. In: Malacologia. International Journal of Malacology. Volume 47 (2005), pp. 239–283, ISSN 0076-2997 , archive.org , ConchBooks, ISBN 978-3-925919-72-5 .
- Victor Millard (Ed.): Classification of the Mollusca. A Classification of World Wide Mollusca. Rhine Road, South Africa 1997, ISBN 0-620-21261-6 , online (PDF; 2.46 MB), at olivirv.myspecies.info, accessed February 25, 2017.
- Winston F. Ponder , David R. Lindberg : Towards a phylogeny of gastropod molluscs. An analysis using morphological characters. In: Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society. Volume 119 (1997), pp. 83-265, ISSN 0024-4082 , doi: 10.1111 / j.1096-3642.1997.tb00137.x .
- Frank Riedel: Origin and Evolution of the "higher" Caenogastropoda (Berlin Geoscientific Treatises / Series E; Volume 32). FUB, Berlin 2000, ISBN 3-89582-077-6 .
