Tethydidae Explained

Tethydidae is a family of dendronotid nudibranch gastropod molluscs in the superfamily Dendronotoidea.^[1]

The original spelling (subfamily) is Tethydia. It was placed on the Official List by Opinion 1182 of ICZN (1981: 174), which also ruled that the name should be corrected to Tethydidae (Bouchet & Rocroi, 2005).

Taxonomy

This family is within the clade Cladobranchia and has no subfamilies (according to the taxonomy of the Gastropoda by Bouchet & Rocroi, 2005).

Genera

There are two^[2] genera within the family Tethydidae:

• Melibe Rang, 1829
• Tethys Linnaeus, 1767 - the type genus,

Genera brought into synonymy :

• Chioraera Gould, 1852 accepted as Melibe Rang, 1829
• Fimbria O'Donoghue, 1926: synonym of Tethys Linnaeus, 1767 (invalid: junior homonym of Fimbria Megerle, 1811.)
• Jacunia de Filippi, 1867 accepted as Melibe Rang, 1829
• Melibaea synonym of Melibe Rang, 1829
• Meliboea [sic] : Melibe Rang, 1829 (incorrect subsequent spelling [by Forbes, 1838] of Melibe Rang, 1829)
• Propemelibe Allan, 1932 accepted as Melibe Rang, 1829

Description

Species in this family do not possess a radula.^[3]

External links

• Forbes E. (1844). Report on the Mollusca and Radiata of the Aegean sea, and on their distribution, considered as bearing on geology. Reports of the British Association for the Advancement of Science for 1843. 130-193
• Goodheart, J. A.; Bazinet, A. L.; Valdés, Á.; Collins, A. G.; Cummings, M. P. (2017). Prey preference follows phylogeny: evolutionary dietary patterns within the marine gastropod group Cladobranchia (Gastropoda: Heterobranchia: Nudibranchia). BMC Evolutionary Biology. 17(1)

Notes and References

1. Picton, B.; Bouchet, P. (2017). Tethydidae Rafinesque, 1815. In: MolluscaBase (2017). Accessed through: World Register of Marine Species at http://www.marinespecies.org/aphia.php?p=taxdetails&id=23125 on 2017-12-20
2. Gosliner T. M. & Smith V. G. (2003). "Systematic review and phylogenetic analysis of the nudibranch genus Melibe (Opistobranchia: Dendronotacea) with descriptions of three new species". Proceedings of the California Academy of Sciences 54: 302–355. PDF.
3. [William B. Rudman|Rudman W. B.]