On Brazilian supralittoral and brackish water snails
In: Boletim do Instituto Oceanográfico. Universidade de Sao Paulo: Sao Paulo. ISSN 0373-5524; e-ISSN 1982-436X, more
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| Keywords |
Basommatophora [WoRMS]; Detracia parana J. P. E. Morrison, 1951 [WoRMS]; Ellobiidae L. Pfeiffer, 1854 (1822) [WoRMS]; Heleobia charruana (A. d'Orbigny, 1841) [WoRMS]; Littoridina charruana (A. d'Orbigny, 1841) [WoRMS]; Melampus bidentatus Say, 1822 [WoRMS]; Melampus coffeus [sic] [WoRMS]; Pulmonata [WoRMS]
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| Abstract |
On their way from an ancestral marine, probably intertidal, habitat to land and therewith to rich sources of oxygen and vegetable food the Ellobiidae (Pulmonata, Basommatophora) have been favoured by their made of reproduction. Most of them hatch as young snails, and their velum and operculum are embryonal. Semper (1880; quoted from Pelseneer 1894, p. 114-15) was the first to observe this. Morch's earlier statement (1867, p. 2) of free-swimming larvae evidently refers to Melampodinae, a sub-family of the Ellobiidae. The vast geographic distribution of Melampus over the Indopacific islands led Fischer & Crosse (1880, p. 21) to suppose free larvae for the species of this genus. The first egg masses of Melampus bidentatus Say were recorded by Hausman (1932), the veligers of several Melampodinae discovered by Morrison (1953; 1958b). One of these is M. cofteus (L.), as Dr. Joseph P. E. Morrison kindly informed by letter (November 7, 1962) . |
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