List of non-marine molluscs of Afghanistan

The non-marine molluscs of Afghanistan
Afghanistan
Afghanistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located in the centre of Asia, forming South Asia, Central Asia and the Middle East. With a population of about 29 million, it has an area of , making it the 42nd most populous and 41st largest nation in the world...

are a part of the wildlife of Afghanistan

Wildlife of Afghanistan

Afghanistan has long been known for its rich and diverse wildlife, as recorded in the memoirs of Babur, founder of the Mughal dynasty that ruled the country from 1483 to 1530...

. Afghanistan is land-locked and has no marine molluscs, only land and freshwater

Freshwater

Fresh water is naturally occurring water on the Earth's surface in ice sheets, ice caps, glaciers, bogs, ponds, lakes, rivers and streams, and underground as groundwater in aquifers and underground streams. Fresh water is generally characterized by having low concentrations of dissolved salts and...

species, including snail

Snail

Snail is a common name applied to most of the members of the molluscan class Gastropoda that have coiled shells in the adult stage. When the word is used in its most general sense, it includes sea snails, land snails and freshwater snails. The word snail without any qualifier is however more often...

s, slug

Slug

Slug is a common name that is normally applied to any gastropod mollusc that lacks a shell, has a very reduced shell, or has a small internal shell...

s, and freshwater bivalve

Freshwater bivalve

Freshwater bivalves are one kind of freshwater molluscs. They are bivalves which live in freshwater, as opposed to saltwater. Although the majority of species of bivalve molluscs live in the sea, a number of different families of bivalves live in freshwater...

s. The molluscan fauna of the country is poorly known and contains over 70 molluscan taxa.

History of malacozoology of Afghanistan

The earliest reports on Afghanistan molluscs consists of scattered descriptions of materials gathered on various military expeditions. Only the reports of Thomas Hutton (zoologist) (1834, 1849-1850), who recorded 21 species, and César Marie Félix Ancey

César Marie Félix Ancey

César Marie Félix Ancey was a French conchologist and entomologist.He was for 23 years ‘conservateur’ of collections for Charles Oberthür at Rennes...

(1893), who listed 27 taxa, are at all comprehensive. Nelson Annandale

Nelson Annandale

Thomas Nelson Annandale CIE was a Scottish zoologist, entomologist and anthropologist.The eldest son of Thomas Annandale, the regius professor of clinical surgery at the University of Edinburgh, Nelson was educated at Rugby School, Balliol College, Oxford, and the University of Edinburgh.Annandale...

& Baini Prashad (1919) issued a voluminous report on freshwater collections from the southwestern deserts, and Jaeckel (1956) recorded 27 species taken by an entomological

Entomology

Entomology is the scientific study of insects, a branch of arthropodology...

survey team (see Klapperich, 1954). Jaeckel (1956) summarized previous work, evaluated records, and concluded that there were 37 species known from Afghanistan. Ilya Mikhailovich Likharev & Yaroslav Igorevich Starobogatov (1967) had available extensive materials taken from 127 collecting stations between 1957 and 1962. Their report covered 53 species represented by new material, with an additional 14 names carried over from earlier reports, but not verified from their collecting.

Alan Solem

Alan Solem

Alan Solem, full name George Alan Solem was an American malacologist, a biologist who studied mollusks.He was one of the most renown land snail experts of his time and had earned a reputation for his comprehensive revisions of mainly terrestrial pulmonates...

have reported 10 new taxa (3 newly described species and 6 found species) that were previously not known from Afghanistan in 1979. Up to 1979, 73 taxa

Taxon

|thumb|270px|[[African elephants]] form a widely-accepted taxon, the [[genus]] LoxodontaA taxon is a group of organisms, which a taxonomist adjudges to be a unit. Usually a taxon is given a name and a rank, although neither is a requirement...

of molluscs have been recorded from Afghanistan.

It is obvious that knowledge of the Afghanistan molluscan fauna is in a very preliminary stage. The same statements apply to surrounding areas, with the exception of Turkmenistan

Turkmenistan

Turkmenistan , formerly also known as Turkmenia is one of the Turkic states in Central Asia. Until 1991, it was a constituent republic of the Soviet Union, the Turkmen Soviet Socialist Republic . Turkmenistan is one of the six independent Turkic states...

, Uzbekistan

Uzbekistan

Uzbekistan , officially the Republic of Uzbekistan is a doubly landlocked country in Central Asia and one of the six independent Turkic states. It shares borders with Kazakhstan to the west and to the north, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan to the east, and Afghanistan and Turkmenistan to the south....

and Tajikistan

Tajikistan

Tajikistan , officially the Republic of Tajikistan , is a mountainous landlocked country in Central Asia. Afghanistan borders it to the south, Uzbekistan to the west, Kyrgyzstan to the north, and China to the east....

in the north (that were part of the U.S.S.R. at that time), where the summary volumes of Likharev & Rammel'meier (1962) and Anatoliy Alexeyevich Schileyko (1978) provide a solid basis of comparative knowledge. The probability of additional taxa existing is very high, particularly among the Helicoidea

Helicoidea

Helicoidea is a taxonomic superfamily of air-breathing land snails, terrestrial pulmonate gastropod mollusks in the clade Stylommatophora.-Families:There are 19 families within the superfamily Helicoidea according to Bouchet & Rocroi .* Helicidae...

and Enidae

Enidae

Enidae is a family of air-breathing land snails, terrestrial pulmonate gastropod mollusks.- Anatomy :In this family, the number of haploid chromosomes lies between 21 and 25 .- 1998 taxonomy :...

. Since the Street collections (from Street Expedition of 1962-1963) were made incidentally to mammal collecting, the relatively high percentage of unrecorded taxa suggests that only the tip of Afghanistan molluscan diversity has been sampled. In the 2000s the molluscan fauna is still incompletely known (also with the neigbouring Iran

Iran

Iran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran , is a country in Southern and Western Asia. The name "Iran" has been in use natively since the Sassanian era and came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was known to the Western world as Persia...

Freshwater gastropods

Viviparidae

Viviparidae, sometimes known as the river snails or mystery snails, are a family of large operculate freshwater snails, aquatic gastropod mollusks....

Bellamya hilmendensis (Kobelt, 1908)

Bithyniidae

Bithyniidae is a family of small freshwater snails with an operculum, aquatic gastropod molluscs in the clade Littorinimorpha.Their minute shell is often colored. They are characterized by a calcareous operculum, a lobe on the upper surface of the neck. The ctenidium, the respiratory gill-comb, is...

Gabbia sistanica (Annandale & Prashad, 1919)

Lymnaeidae

Lymnaeidae is a taxonomic family of small to large air-breathing freshwater snails, aquatic pulmonate gastropod mollusks, that belong to the clade Hygrophila....

Galba truncatula
Galba truncatula
Galba truncatula is a species of air-breathing freshwater snail, an aquatic pulmonate gastropod mollusk in the family Lymnaeidae, the pond snails.Until recently, this species was commonly known as Lymnaea truncatula.-Description:...

(Müller, 1774)
Lymnaea bactriana (Hutton, 1849)
Lymnaea gedrosiana (Annandale & Prashad, 1919)
Radix auricularia
Radix auricularia
Radix auricularia, common name the big-ear radix, is a species of medium-sized freshwater snail, an aquatic pulmonate gastropod mollusk in the family Lymnaeidae.Radix auricularia is the type species of the genus Radix.-Forms:...

(Linnaeus, 1758)

Planorbidae

Planorbidae, common name the ramshorn snails or ram's horn snails, is a family of air-breathing freshwater snails, aquatic pulmonate gastropod mollusks....

Anisus convexiusculus (Hutton, 1849)
Gyraulus euphraticus (Mousson, 1874)
Indoplanorbis exustus
Indoplanorbis exustus
Indoplanorbis exustus is a species of air-breathing freshwater snail, an aquatic pulmonate gastropod mollusk in the family Planorbidae, the ram's horn snails. The species is the sole member of its genus and is widely distributed across the tropics. It serves as an important intermediate host for...

(Deshayes, 1834)
Polypylis calathus (Benson, 1850)

Land gastropods

Succineidae

Succineidae are a family of small to medium-sized, air-breathing, land snails , terrestrial pulmonate gastropod molluscs. They are commonly called amber snails because their thin fragile shells are translucent and amber-colored...

Oxyloma indica (Pfeiffer, 1849)
Oxyloma elegans
Oxyloma elegans
Oxyloma elegans is a species of small European land snail, a terrestrial pulmonate gastropod mollusk belonging to the family Succineidae, the amber snails.-Distribution and conservation status:...

(Risso, 1826)

Chondrinidae

Chondrinidae is a family of mostly minute air-breathing land snails, terrestrial pulmonate gastropod mollusks in the order Pulmonata.-Anatomy:In this family, the number of haploid chromosomes lies between 26 and 30 ....

Granopupa granum (Draparnaud, 1801)
Granaria lapidaria (Hutton, 1849)

Pupillidae

Pupillidae is a family of mostly minute, air-breathing, land snails, terrestrial pulmonate gastropod mollusks or micromollusks in the clade Stylommatophora....

Pupilla afghanicum Solem, 1979 - subgenus Gibbulinopsis
Pupoides coenopictus (Hutton, 1834)

Valloniidae

Valloniidae is a taxonomic family of small and minute, air-breathing land snails, terrestrial pulmonate gastropod mollusks in the clade Stylommatophora.-Anatomy:...

Pupisoma orcula
Pupisoma orcula
Pupisoma orcula is a species of minute, air-breathing land snail, terrestrial pulmonate gastropod mollusc or micromollusks in the family Valloniidae....

(Benson, 1850) - non-indigenous. This Least Concern
Least Concern
Least Concern is an IUCN category assigned to extant taxon or lower taxa which have been evaluated but do not qualify for any other category. As such they do not qualify as threatened, Near Threatened, or Conservation Dependent...

species endemic to Micronesia, but one broken specimen was found to be introduced in Afghanistan. There are no other species of molluscs listed in the 2010 IUCN Red List
IUCN Red List
The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species , founded in 1963, is the world's most comprehensive inventory of the global conservation status of biological species. The International Union for Conservation of Nature is the world's main authority on the conservation status of species...

for Afghanistan.
Vallonia asiatica (Nevill, 1878)
Vallonia mionecton (O. Boettger, 1889) - Vallonia mionecton schamhalensis Rosen, 1892

Enidae

Enidae is a family of air-breathing land snails, terrestrial pulmonate gastropod mollusks.- Anatomy :In this family, the number of haploid chromosomes lies between 21 and 25 .- 1998 taxonomy :...

Laevozebrinus eremita (Reeve, 1849)
Subzebrinus tandjanensis (Kobelt, 1902)
Subzebrinus drangianus Jaeckel, 1956
Subzebrinus coelocentrus (Ancey, 1893)
Subzebrinus streeti Solem, 1979
Subzebrinus griffithsii (Benson, 1848)

Gastrodontidae

Gastrodontidae is a family of air-breathing land snails, terrestrial pulmonate gastropod mollusks in the clade Eupulmonata ....

Zonitoides nitidus
Zonitoides nitidus
Zonitoides nitidus is a species of small, air-breathing land snail, a terrestrial pulmonate gastropod mollusk in the family Gastrodontidae.Zonitoides nitidus is the type species of the genus Zonitoides.-Distribution:...

(Müller, 1774)

Parmacellidae

Parmacellidae is a family of air-breathing land slugs, terrestrial pulmonate gastropod mollusks within the superfamily Parmacelloidea ....

Candaharia rutellum
Candaharia rutellum
Candaharia rutellum is a species of air-breathing land slug, a terrestrial gastropod mollusk in the family Parmacellidae.-Distribution:The distribution of Candaharia rutellum includes mountains in Central Asia: Tien-Shan, Alai and Pamir-Darvaz....

(Hutton, 1849) - synonym: Parmacella (Proparmacella) rutellum (Hutton, 1849)

Ariophantidae

Ariophantidae is a taxonomic family of air-breathing land snails and semi-slugs, terrestrial pulmonate gastropod mollusks in the superfamily Helicarionoidea .- Distribution :...

Parvatella flemingi (Pfeiffer, 1857)
Parvatella sogdianus (Martens, 1871)
Syama cavicula Solem, 1979

Vitrinidae

Vitrinidae is a family of small, air-breathing land snails, terrestrial pulmonate gastropod mollusks in the superfamily Limacoidea ....

Phenacolimax conoidea (Martens, 1874) - subgenus Oligolimax

Agriolimacidae

Agriolimacidae is a family of small and medium sized land slugs, or shell-less snails, terrestrial pulmonate gastropod mollusks.- Distribution :Distribution of Limacidae is Holarctic, this include: Nearctic, western Palearctic and eastern Palearctic....

Lytopelte kandaharensis (Altena, 1970)

Ferussaciidae

Ferussaciidae is a family of air-breathing land snails, terrestrial pulmonate gastropod mollusks in the superfamily Achatinoidea.This family has no subfamilies...

Cecilioides bensoni Gude, 1914 - subgenus: Geostilbia, synonym: Caecilioides bensoni

Subulinidae

Subulinidae is a family of small tropical air-breathing land snails, terrestrial pulmonate gastropod mollusks in the superfamily Achatinoidea.- Anatomy :...

Zootecus insularis chion (Pfeiffer, 1857)

Bradybaenidae

Bradybaenidae is a taxonomic family of medium-sized to small land snails, terrestrial pulmonate gastropod mollusks in the superfamily Helicoidea....

Bradybaena fedtschenkoi (Martens, 1874)

Hygromiidae

Hygromiidae is a taxonomic family of small to medium-sized air-breathing land snails, terrestrial pulmonate gastropod mollusks in the superfamily Helicoidea.-Anatomy:...

Hesseola bactriana (Hutton, 1849) - synonym: Euomphalia bactriana (Hutton, 1849)
Leucozonella rufispira (Martens, 1874)
Xeropicta candaharica (L. Pfeiffer, 1846)

Freshwater bivalves

Unionidae

Unionidae is a family of freshwater mussels, the largest in the order Unionoida, the bivalve mollusks sometimes known as river mussels, naiads, or simply as unionids.The range of distribution for this family is world-wide...

Lamellidens testudinarius (Spengler) var. rhadinaeus Annandale & Prashad, 1919

Corbiculidae

The Corbiculidae, common name "basket clams", are a family of aquatic bivalve molluscs in the order Veneroida.Clams in this family release many juveniles into the surrounding waters that have hatched inside the clams . Fertilization is internal...

Corbicula fluminalis (Müller, 1774)

History of malacozoology of Afghanistan

Freshwater gastropods

Land gastropods

Freshwater bivalves

See also

Further reading