Turridae

Turridae
Five views of a shell of Turris crispa
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Mollusca
Class: Gastropoda
(unranked): clade Caenogastropoda
clade Hypsogastropoda
clade Neogastropoda
Superfamily: Conoidea
Family: Turridae
H. Adams & A. Adams, 1853

Turridae is a taxonomic family name for a number of predatory sea snails, marine gastropod mollusks in the superfamily Conoidea. The family name Turridae was originally given to a very large group of several thousand sea snail species that were thought to be closely related. However, that original grouping was discovered to be polyphyletic.

In recent years, the family Turridae has been much reduced in size, because a number of other families were created to contain the monophyletic lineages that had previously been thought to belong in the same family.

The common name "turrids" is still used informally to refer to the polyphyletic group.

Distribution

Species in the family Turridae are found worldwide; most are found in the neritic zone.

Shell description

The shape of the shells is more or less fusiform. The whorls are elongate to broadly conical.

Turrids are carnivorous, predatory gastropods. Most species have a poison gland used with the toxoglossan radula, used to prey on vertebrates and invertebrate animals (mostly polychaete worms) or in self-defense.[1] Some turrids have lost the radula and the poison gland. The radula, when present, has two or three teeth in a row. It lacks lateral teeth and the marginal teeth are of the wishbone or duplex type. The teeth with a duplex form are not shaped from two distinct elements but grow from a flat plate, by thickening at the edges of the teeth and elevation of the rear edge from the membrane.[2]

Female turrids lay their eggs in lens-shaped capsules.

History of the taxonomy

The family Turridae, in the older broadest sense of the group, was in the past perceived as one of the most difficult groups to study because of a large number of supra-specific described taxa,[3] which were complicated by their species diversity.[4] Although some species were relatively common, many were rare, some being known only from single specimens; this is another factor that made studying the group difficult.

2005 taxonomy

According to the taxonomy of the Gastropoda by Bouchet & Rocroi, 2005, which attempted to set out a stable taxonomy, this family consisted of the following five subfamilies:[5]

2011 taxonomy

The 2005 classification system for the group was greatly changed by the 2011 publication of an article revising the taxonomy of the superfamily Conoidea, Bouchet P., Kantor Yu.I., Sysoev A. & Puillandre N. (2011) A new operational classification of the Conoidea. Journal of Molluscan Studies 77: 273-308. The authors presented a new classification of the superfamily Conoidea on the genus level, based on anatomical characters but also on the molecular phylogeny as presented by Puillandre N., et al., 2008.[6] The polyphyletic family Turridae was resolved into 13 monophyletic families (containing 358 currently recognized genera and subgenera) :

Current genera

Genera in the family Turridae sensu stricto, now include:[7]

Polystira albida

Synonymy


Subfamily ?Strictispirinae McLean, 1971 accepted as Strictispiridae McLean, 1971

References

  1. ↑ Duda, T.F., Jr., Kohn, A.J. & Palumbi, S.R. (2001) Origins of diverse feeding ecologies within Conus, a genus of venomous marine gastropods. Biological Journal of the Linnean Society of London, 73, 391–409.
  2. ↑ Kantor, Yuri I; John D.Taylor (2000). "Formation of marginal radular teeth in Conoidea (Neogastropoda) and the evolution of the hypodermic envenomation mechanism". Journal of Zoology. Cambridge University Press. 252 (2): 251–262. doi:10.1111/j.1469-7998.2000.tb00620.x.
  3. ↑ Sysoev, A.V. (1993) Appendix 2 Genus-group taxa of Recent Turridae S.L. Bulletin of the Natural History Museum of London, Zoology, 59, 163–169
  4. ↑ Sysoev, A.V. (1991) Preliminary analysis of the relationship between turrids (Gastropoda, Toxoglossa, Turridae) with different types of radular apparatus in various Recent and fossil faunas. Ruthenica, 1, 53–66.
  5. ↑ Bouchet P.; Rocroi J.-P.; Frýda J.; Hausdorf B.; Ponder W.; Valdés Á. & Warén A. (2005). "Classification and nomenclator of gastropod families". Malacologia: International Journal of Malacology. Hackenheim, Germany: ConchBooks. 47 (1-2): 1–397. ISBN 3-925919-72-4. ISSN 0076-2997.
  6. ↑ Puillandre N., et al., 2008 " Starting to unravel the toxoglossan knot: molecular phylogeny of the “turrids” (Neogastropoda: Conoidea)". Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 2008;47:1122-1134
  7. ↑ Turridae. WoRMS, accessed 18 November 2015

Further reading

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