List of non-marine molluscs of Afghanistan explained

The non-marine molluscs of Afghanistan are a part of the wildlife of Afghanistan. Afghanistan is land-locked and has no marine molluscs, only land and freshwater species, including snails, slugs, and freshwater bivalves. The molluscan fauna of the country is poorly known and contains over 70 molluscan taxa.

History of malacozoology of Afghanistan

The earliest reports on Afghanistan molluscs consists of scattered descriptions of materials gathered on various military expeditions. Only the reports of Thomas Hutton (zoologist) (1834, 1849–1850),[1] [2] who recorded 21 species, and César Marie Félix Ancey (1893),[3] who listed 27 taxa, are at all comprehensive. Nelson Annandale & Baini Prashad (1919)[4] issued a voluminous report on freshwater collections from the southwestern deserts, and Jaeckel (1956)[5] recorded 27 species taken by an entomological survey team (see Klapperich, 1954).[6] Jaeckel (1956) summarized previous work, evaluated records, and concluded that there were 37 species known from Afghanistan. Ilya Mikhailovich Likharev & Yaroslav Igorevich Starobogatov (1967)[7] had available extensive materials taken from 127 collecting stations between 1957 and 1962. Their report covered 53 species represented by new material, with an additional 14 names carried over from earlier reports, but not verified from their collecting.

Alan Solem have reported 10 new taxa (3 newly described species and 6 found species) that were previously not known from Afghanistan in 1979. Up to 1979, 73 taxa of molluscs have been recorded from Afghanistan.

It is obvious that knowledge of the Afghanistan molluscan fauna is in a very preliminary stage. The same statements apply to surrounding areas, with the exception of Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan in the north (that were part of the U.S.S.R. at that time), where the summary volumes of Likharev & Rammel'meier (1962)[8] and Anatoliy Alexeyevich Schileyko (1978)[9] provide a solid basis of comparative knowledge. The probability of additional taxa existing is very high, particularly among the Helicoidea and Enidae. Since the Street collections (from Street Expedition of 1962-1963) were made incidentally to mammal collecting, the relatively high percentage of unrecorded taxa suggests that only the tip of Afghanistan molluscan diversity has been sampled. In the 2000s the molluscan fauna is still incompletely known (also with the neighbouring Iran).[10]

Freshwater gastropods

Viviparidae

Bithyniidae

Lymnaeidae

Planorbidae

Land gastropods

Succineidae

Chondrinidae

Pupillidae

Valloniidae

Enidae

Gastrodontidae

Parmacellidae

Ariophantidae

Vitrinidae

Agriolimacidae

Ferussaciidae

Subulinidae

Bradybaenidae

Hygromiidae

Freshwater bivalves

Unionidae

Corbiculidae

See also

References

This article incorporates public domain text from the reference[15]

Further reading

Notes and References

  1. [Thomas Hutton (zoologist)|Hutton T.]
  2. [Thomas Hutton (zoologist)|Hutton T.]
  3. Ancey C. F. (1893). "Faunes malacologiques de l'Afghanistan et du Beloutchistan". Bulletin de la Société Zoologique de France 18: 40-47.
  4. [Nelson Annandale|Annandale N.]
  5. Jaeckel S. (1956). "Die Weichtiere (Mollusca) der Afghanistan-Expedition (1952 und 1953) J. Klapperichs." Mitteilungen aus dem Zoologischen Museum in Berlin 32(2): 337-353, 10 figs.
  6. Klapperich J. (1954). "Auf Forschungsreisen in Afghanistan". Entomol. Bl. Biol. Syst. Kaefer 50(1): 107-118, 1 map.
  7. Likharev I. M. & Starobogatov Ya. I. (1967). ["On the molluscan fauna of Afghanistan"]. Trudy Zoologicheskogo Instituta Akademii nauk SSR 42: 159-197, 19 text figs., 2 tables.
  8. Likharev I. M. & Rammel'meier E. S. (1962). Terrestrial Mollusks of the Fauna of the U.S.S.R. Keys to the Fauna of the U.S.S.R. 43 574 pp., 420 figs. (English translation published for the National Science Foundation by the Israel Program for Scientific Translations).
  9. [Anatoliy Alexeyevich Schileyko|Schileyko A. A.]
  10. Anderson S. C. (Originally Published: December 15, 2004; Last Updated: December 15, 2004). "INVERTEBRATE ANIMALS IN IRAN, AFGHANISTAN, AND NEIGHBORING CENTRAL ASIA. This category includes all animals without a vertebral column. Thus it is a term of convenience that, though widely used, has little biological meaning". Encyclopædia Iranica. Accessed 28 July 2010.
  11. Kantor Yu I., Vinarski M. V., Schileyko A. A. & Sysoev A. V. (published online on December 22, 2009). "Catalogue of the continental mollusks of Russia and adjacent territories". Version 2.3.
  12. IUCN 2010. IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Version 2010.2. . Downloaded on 28 July 2010. (Search by taxonomy: MOLLUSCA. Search by location: Afghanistan).
  13. Altena C. O. van Regteren (1970). "Notes on Land Slugs, 16: Deroceras from Afghanistan, Including Description of D. kandaharensis". Fieldiana Zoology 51(15): 175-178, fig. 1a-e.
  14. Altena C. O. van Regteren (1975). "Notes on Land Slugs, 22: A Catalogue of the Genus Lytopelte (Limacidae) and a Note on L. kandaharensis (Altena)". The Nautilus 89(2): 62-63.
  15. [File:PD-icon.svg|15px]

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