Philomycidae

Taxobox
name = Philomycidae

---

image_width = 200px
image_caption = "Philomycus carolinianus" from W. G. Binney, 1878 [Binney, William G. (1878). The Terrestrial Air-Breathing Mollusks of the United States and Adjacent Territories of North America. Vol. 5 (plates). Bull. Mus. Comparative Zool., Harvard. Plate 63.]
regnum = Animalia
phylum = Mollusca
classis = Gastropoda
ordo = Pulmonata
superfamilia = Arionoidea
familia = Philomycidae
familia_authority =
subdivision_ranks = Genera
subdivision = See text.

The Philomycidae are a family of land slugs, snails without shells or with only shell remnants, terrestrial pulmonate gastropod mollusks.

Distribution

Slugs in this family are found in China, Japan, the East Indies, central and eastern North America, and through Central America into northern South America.

Anatomy

Members of this family most obviously differ from related slugs in that their mantles are broadly rounded, and very large, covering the entire body. (In mollusks, the mantle consists of the tissues that normally generate the shell. Being mostly or entirely without shells, most slugs have reduced mantles.)

Pilsbry (1948) states that the "enormously developed mantle, the large empty shell sac, and the insertions of the free retractor muscles along the margins of the foot cavity, instead of dorsally as in the Arionidae are special to the Philomycidae".Pilsbry, Henry A. 1948. Land Mollusca of North America (North of Mexico). Acad. Nat. Sci. Philadelphia, Monograph 3, vol. 2(2): 748-750.]

A further anatomical oddity of the group, shared with certain helicid and zonitid snails, is their creating and use of calcareous love darts to stimulate a partner during mating. [http://snailstales.blogspot.com/2005/04/dissection-selection-philomycus.html "Snail's Tales" blog of Aydin Örstan]

Genera within the family Philomycidae

* "Incilaria"
* "Megapallifera"
* "Meghimatium"
* "Pallifera"
* "Philomycus"

References