| | The families of non-marine molluscs of Britain and Ireland (slugs, snails and mussels) |
Unless indicated otherwise, the following attributes are implicit throughout the descriptions, except where the characters concerned are inapplicable.
Morphology. Not slender and worm-like when extended. Eyes present. The jaw not as in Zonitidae and Limacidae. The mantle not extending over the shell.
The shell not bent, the margin opposite the hinge outwardly curved. The shell more or less symmetrical about its vertical axis. The whorls neither shouldered nor keeled; without spines; not conspicuously transversely ridged. The shell not markedly striated across the whorls.
General biology, ecology. Breathing air directly via the lung-like mantle cavity. Not principally carnivorous. Lifestyle not subterranean.
Oviparous. Courtship not involving ‘love darts’.
We advise against extracting comparative information from the descriptions. This is much more easily achieved using the DELTA data files or the interactive key, which allows access to the character list, illustrations, full and partial descriptions, diagnostic descriptions, differences and similarities between taxa, lists of taxa exhibiting or lacking specified attributes, and distributions of character states within any set of taxa. See also Guidelines for using data taken from Web publications.
Cite this publication as: ‘Watson, L., and Dallwitz, M.J. 2005 onwards. The families of non-marine molluscs of Britain and Ireland (slugs, snails and mussels). Version: 5th August 2019. delta-intkey.com’.