The Aciculidae are a family of minute land snails which have opercula (an operculum is a little door that closes the shell when the animal retracts into it). In other words, Aciculidae are terrestrial operculate gastropods. Even though Aciculidae are land snails, they live in rather wet conditions, among mosses and dead leaves and they have sometimes been described as "winkles come ashore".

Taxonomy

Previously this family was placed in the infraorder Littorinimorpha, in the suborder Hypsogastropoda in the order Sorbeoconcha in the taxonomy of the Gastropoda by Ponder & Lindberg (1997).

Aciculidae

The family Aciculidae is in the informal group Architaenioglossa, belonging to the clade Caenogastropoda, (according to the taxonomy of the Gastropoda by Bouchet & Rocroi, 2005). This family has no subfamilies according to the taxonomy of the Gastropoda by Bouchet & Rocroi, 2005.

Aciculidae

In the Taxonomy of the Gastropoda (Bouchet et al., 2017), it was placed under Cyclophoroidea.

Aciculidae

Genera

Genera within the family Aciculidae include: Acicula W. Hartmann, 1821 - the needle snail, type genus Menkia Boeters, E. Gittenberger & Subai, 1985 Platyla Moquin-Tandon, 1856 Renea Nevill, 1880 Cretatortulosa gignens 2020

References

Horst Janus, 1965. The Young Specialist Looks at Land and Freshwater Molluscs, Burke, London Egorov, R. V., 2009, Kladovaja rakovin Rossii [Treasure of Russian shells]. Supplement 3. A review of the genera of the recent terrestrial pectinibranch molluscs (synopsis mainly based on published data). Part II, Littoriniformes. Hainesiidae, Aciculidae, Cyclophoridae, Craspedopomatidae. Moscow. 58 pp

Gastropod families

Taxa named by John Edward Gray