Helix (gastropod)

Helix
Temporal range: Miocene–recent
Helix pomatia
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Mollusca
Class: Gastropoda
Order: Stylommatophora
Family: Helicidae
Subfamily: Helicinae
Tribe: Helicini
Genus: Helix
Linnaeus, 1758
Type species
Helix pomatia
Synonyms

see text

Helix is a genus of large, air-breathing land snails native to the western Palaearctic and characterized by a globular shell.[1][2]

It is the type genus of the family Helicidae, and one of the animal genera described by Carl Linnaeus[3] at the dawn of the zoological nomenclature.

Members of the genus first appeared in the fossil record during the Miocene.[4]

Well-known species include Helix pomatia (Roman snail, Burgundy snail, or edible snail) and Helix lucorum (Turkish snail). Cornu aspersum (garden snail), though externally similar and long classified as a member of Helix (as "Helix aspersa"), is not closely related to Helix[5][6] and belongs to a different tribe of Helicinae.[7]

  1. ^ Korábek, Ondřej; Juřičková, Lucie; Petrusek, Adam (January 2022). "Diversity of Land Snail Tribe Helicini (Gastropoda: Stylommatophora: Helicidae): Where Do We Stand after 20 Years of Sequencing Mitochondrial Markers?". Diversity. 14 (1): 24. doi:10.3390/d14010024. ISSN 1424-2818.
  2. ^ Neubert, Eike (2014). "Revision of Helix Linnaeus, 1758 in its eastern Mediterranean distribution area, and reassignment of Helix godetiana Kobelt, 1878 to Maltzanella Hesse, 1917 (Gastropoda, Pulmonata, Helicidae)". Contributions to Natural History. 26: 1–200.
  3. ^ Linnaeus, C. (1758). Systema naturae per regna tria naturae, secundum classes, ordines, genera, species, cum caracteribus, differentiis, synonymis, locis. Tomus I. Editio decima, reformata. Stockholm. p. 768.
  4. ^ Harzhauser, Mathias; Neubauer, Thomas A. (1 June 2021). "A review of the land snail faunas of the European Cenozoic – composition, diversity and turnovers". Earth-Science Reviews. 217: 103610. Bibcode:2021ESRv..21703610H. doi:10.1016/j.earscirev.2021.103610. ISSN 0012-8252. S2CID 233835790.
  5. ^ Koene, Joris M; Schulenburg, Hinrich (2005). "Shooting darts: co-evolution and counter-adaptation in hermaphroditic snails". BMC Evolutionary Biology. 5 (1): 25. doi:10.1186/1471-2148-5-25. PMC 1080126. PMID 15799778.
  6. ^ Giusti, F.; Manganelli, G.; Schembri, P. J. (1995). The non-marine molluscs of the Maltese Islands. Torino: Museo Regionale di Scienze Naturali.
  7. ^ Neiber, Marco T; Korábek, Ondřej; Glaubrecht, Matthias; Hausdorf, Bernhard (11 April 2022). "A misinterpreted disjunction: the phylogenetic relationships of the North African land snail Gyrostomella (Gastropoda: Stylommatophora: Helicidae)". Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society. 194 (4): 1236–1251. doi:10.1093/zoolinnean/zlab059. ISSN 0024-4082.