Partulidae
Encyclopedia
Partulidae is a family
Family (biology)
In biological classification, family is* a taxonomic rank. Other well-known ranks are life, domain, kingdom, phylum, class, order, genus, and species, with family fitting between order and genus. As for the other well-known ranks, there is the option of an immediately lower rank, indicated by the...

 of air-breathing land snail
Land snail
A land snail is any of the many species of snail that live on land, as opposed to those that live in salt water and fresh water. Land snails are terrestrial gastropod mollusks that have shells, It is not always an easy matter to say which species are terrestrial, because some are more or less...

s, terrestrial
Terrestrial animal
Terrestrial animals are animals that live predominantly or entirely on land , as compared with aquatic animals, which live predominantly or entirely in the water , or amphibians, which rely on a combination of aquatic and terrestrial habitats...

 gastropod mollusks in the infraorder Stylommatophora
Stylommatophora
Stylommatophora is a taxon of air-breathing land snails and slugs, terrestrial pulmonate gastropod molluscs. This taxon is currently considered to be a clade. It was previously regarded as an infraorder...

, endemic to Pacific islands.

Genera

Partulidae is divided into three genera:
  • Eua
    Eua
    Eua is a genus of air-breathing land snails, terrestrial pulmonate gastropod mollusks in the family Partulidae.-Species:Species within the genus Eua include:* Eua expansa* Eua globosa* Eua montana* Eua zebrina...

    has four species, confined to Tonga
    Tonga
    Tonga, officially the Kingdom of Tonga , is a state and an archipelago in the South Pacific Ocean, comprising 176 islands scattered over of ocean in the South Pacific...

     and Samoa
    Samoa
    Samoa , officially the Independent State of Samoa, formerly known as Western Samoa is a country encompassing the western part of the Samoan Islands in the South Pacific Ocean. It became independent from New Zealand in 1962. The two main islands of Samoa are Upolu and one of the biggest islands in...

    .
  • Partula
    Partula (genus)
    Partula is a genus of air-breathing tropical land snails, terrestrial pulmonate gastropod mollusks in the family Partulidae.Many species of Partula are known under general common name "Polynesian Tree Snail" or as "Moorean Viviparous Tree Snail".Partulids are spread over of Pacific Ocean islands,...

    has about 100 species, distributed from Belau
    Belau
    Belau is a municipality in the district of Plön, in Schleswig-Holstein, Germany....

     to the Society Islands
    Society Islands
    The Society Islands are a group of islands in the South Pacific Ocean. They are politically part of French Polynesia. The archipelago is generally believed to have been named by Captain James Cook in honor of the Royal Society, the sponsor of the first British scientific survey of the islands;...

    .
  • Samoana
    Samoana
    Samoana is a genus of tropical, air-breathing, land snails, terrestrial pulmonatel gastropod mollusks in the family Partulidae.- Species :Species within the genus Samoana include::* Samoana abbreviata, Short Samoan tree snail...

    has about 23 species, distributed in Polynesia
    Polynesia
    Polynesia is a subregion of Oceania, made up of over 1,000 islands scattered over the central and southern Pacific Ocean. The indigenous people who inhabit the islands of Polynesia are termed Polynesians and they share many similar traits including language, culture and beliefs...

     and the Mariana Islands
    Mariana Islands
    The Mariana Islands are an arc-shaped archipelago made up by the summits of 15 volcanic mountains in the north-western Pacific Ocean between the 12th and 21st parallels north and along the 145th meridian east...

    .


A cladogram
Cladogram
A cladogram is a diagram used in cladistics which shows ancestral relations between organisms, to represent the evolutionary tree of life. Although traditionally such cladograms were generated largely on the basis of morphological characters, DNA and RNA sequencing data and computational...

 showing phylogenic relations of genera in the family Partulidae:

Anatomy

In this family, the number of haploid chromosome
Chromosome
A chromosome is an organized structure of DNA and protein found in cells. It is a single piece of coiled DNA containing many genes, regulatory elements and other nucleotide sequences. Chromosomes also contain DNA-bound proteins, which serve to package the DNA and control its functions.Chromosomes...

s lies between 26 and 30 (according to the values in this table).

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