Family CORILLIDAE

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Introduction

This family is characterised by a very small to medium shell, discoidal or planispiral, usually with a wide open umbilicus. The shell is dextral or sinistral and numbers of whorls vary from four to eight. The lip of the shell is usually thickened and the aperture has teeth or lamellae.

The family contains five genera and only a single species has been recorded from Australia,. It is known only from a few localities in the Wet Tropics of north-eastern Queensland.

McMichael (1959) considered C. pricei a possible helicarionid because of its reduced sculpture. Solem (1973) provided detailed information on shell, radula and reproductive anatomy of C. pricei and placed it in Camaenidae. Tillier (1989) placed the species in the Corillidae because it lacks an oesphageal crop, absent in all corillids but present in camaenids. Smith (1992) retained the species in Camaenidae.

General References

McMichael, D.F. 1959. A new genus and species of land snail from Nth. Queensland. Journal of the Malacological Society of Australia 1: 31-32 [13 Nov. 1959]

Smith, B.J. 1992. Non-Marine Mollusca. In, Houston, W.W.K. (ed.). Zoological Catalogue of Australia. Non-marine Mollusca. Canberra : Australian Government Publishing Service Vol. 8 xii 408 pp.

Solem, A. 1973. Convergence in pulmonate radulae. Veliger 15: 165-171

Stanisic, J. 1998. Family Corillidae. pp. 1110-1112 in Beesley, P.L., Ross, G.J.B. & Wells, A. (eds). Mollusca: The Southern Synthesis. Fauna of Australia. Melbourne : CSIRO Publishing Vol. 5(Part B) pp. vi–viii, 565–1234.

Tillier, S. 1989. Comparative morphology, phylogeny and classification of land snails and slugs (Gastropoda: Pulmonata: Stylommatophora). Malacologia 30: 1-303

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