Fukuia Explained

Fukuia is a genus of amphibious freshwater snails and land snails with an operculum, gastropod mollusks in the family Pomatiopsidae.

Distribution

The genus Fukuia is endemic to Honshu, Japan. These snails occur especially in the northern and western part of Japan, on the coast of the Sea of Japan. There is a unique climate in the Sea of Japan with high precipitation due to winter snowfall in the area of distribution of Fukuia. These snails have been described as a "Japan Sea element".

Species

Species within the genus Fukuia include:

• Fukuia integra (Pilsbry, 1924) - synonym: Blanfordia integra Pilsbry, 1924, terrestrial
• Fukuia kurodai Abbott & Hunter, 1949 - type species,^[1] amphibious
  • Fukuia kurodai kurodai Abbott & Hunter, 1949
  • Fukuia kurodai niigataensis Minato, 1973
• Fukuia multistriata Abbott & Hunter, 1949 - amphibious

The speciation of genus Fukuia likely started around 7.2 million years ago in the Late Miocene.

Unassigned to genus:

• Fukuia ooyagii Minato, 1982 - Aquatic species Fukuia ooyagii should be separated from Fukuia, and its generic assignment should be determined coupled with the investigation of its soft-part morphology.

Ecology

Fukuia kurodai and Fukuia multistriata live amphibiously around rocky walls of steep valleys covered with ferns and bryophytes, and moistened by dripping water. They live only along the mountain streamlets where such habitats are typically found, and often occur with pleurocerid freshwater snails.

Fukuia integra lives as a terrestrial snail in inland forests.

References

This article incorporates CC-BY-2.0 text from the reference^[2]

Notes and References

1. Davis G. M. (1979). "The origin and evolution of the gastropod family Pomatiopsidae, with emphasis on the Mekong river Triculinae". Academy of natural Sciences of Philadelphia, Monograph 20: 1-120. at Google books.
2. Kameda Y. & Kato M. (2011). "Terrestrial invasion of pomatiopsid gastropods in the heavy-snow region of the Japanese Archipelago". BMC Evolutionary Biology 11: 118. .