| Pleurotomariidae Temporal range:
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| Apertural view of a shell of Entemnotrochus rumphii | |
Scientific classification 
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| Domain: | Eukaryota |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Mollusca |
| Class: | Gastropoda |
| Subclass: | Vetigastropoda |
| Order: | Pleurotomariida |
| Superfamily: | Pleurotomarioidea |
| Family: | Pleurotomariidae Swainson, 1840 |
| Genera | |
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See text | |
Pleurotomariidae, common name the "slit snails", is a family of large marine gastropods in the superfamily Pleurotomarioidea of the subclass Vetigastropoda.[1] This family is a very ancient lineage; there were numerous species in the geological past. The genus includes several hundred fossil forms, mostly Paleozoic. It is one of the oldest gastropod families, commencing in the Cambrian.[2]
The superfamily is currently represented by a group of species that live only in deep water. This family has no subfamilies.
The first living specimens of a species in this family, Perotrochus quoyanus, were dredged in 1879 in deep water off the West Indies by the "Blake" expedition of William Healey Dall.[3]
- ^ Frýda J.; Hausdorf B.; Ponder W.; Valdes A.; Warén A. (2005). Bouchet P.; Rocroi J.-P. (eds.). Taxonomy of the Gastropoda. Hackenheim, Germany.: ConchBooks. p. 397. ISBN 3-925919-72-4. ISSN 0076-2997.
- ^ G.W. Tryon (1890), Manual of Conchology vol. XII, p. 69
- ^ Annals & Magazine of Natural History