Family VERONICELLIDAE Gray, 1840

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Introduction

This family of primitive terrestrial slugs has a circumtropical distribution which closely approximates that of palms, except in North Africa and the Middle East, where no veronicellids are found. Also referred to under the name Vaginulidae in some texts, these slugs are herbivorous, living under stones, grass tufts or decaying wood and occasionally assuming economic importance through the destruction of crops. The species recorded for Australia are all recognised world travellers (Smith 1989) and should be considered as introduced. In Australia they have been considered pests in some Queensland and Northern Territory gardens, particularly in Brisbane and Darwin.

In Australia, the family is represented by a medium sized, soft, brown, dorso-ventrally flattened slugs without a mantle cavity outline and with a single pair of short tentacles.

General References

Bishop, M.J. 1977. Terrestrial Mollusca of Queensland: the family Veronicellidae. Memoirs of the Queensland Museum 18: 53-59 pl. 18

Forcart, L. 1969. Veronicellid land slugs from the New Hebrides, with description of Semperula solemi, new species. Fieldiana Zoology 51: 147-156

Smith, B.J. 1989. Travelling snails. Journal of Medicine and Applied Malacology 1: 195-204

Smith, B.J. & Dartnall, A.J. 1976. Veronicellid slugs in the Northern Territory with notes on other land molluscs. Journal of the Malacological Society of Australia 3: 186

Stanisic, J. 1998. Family Veronicellidae. pp. 1065-1067 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.

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