Shipworms
Shipworm
The shipworms ( Teredinidae ) are a family of shells. All types of drilling in wood and feed on wood.
System
The family has about 66 extant species in three subfamilies and 14 genera.
- Subfamily Kuphinae Tryon, 1862 ( only one kind ) Kuphus polythalamia ( the grown up to 2 m long free animal lives in a calcareous tube in the sediment of mangrove forests )
- Genus Bactronophorus Tapparone - Canefri, 1877
- Genus Neoteredo Bartsch, 1920
- Genus Dicyathifer Iredale, 1932
- Genus Psiloteredo Bartsch, 1922
- Genus Teredothyra Bartsch, 1921
- Genus Tere Dora Bartsch, 1921
- Genus Uperotus Guettard, 1770
- Genus Lyrodus Binney, 1870
- Genus Teredo Linnaeus, 1758 ( as the shipworm ( Teredo navalis ) )
- Genus Zachsia Bualtoff & Rjabtschikoff 1933
- Genus Bankia Gray, 1840
- Genus Nausitora Wright, 1864
- Genus Nototeredo Bartsch, 1923
- Genus Spathoteredo Moll 1928
Fossil evidence
The oldest reliable representatives are known from the Aptian ( Lower Cretaceous ). The left by members of this family characteristic drill hole traces in fossil wood are often handed down. Such trace fossils are grouped under the Ichnogattung Teredolites. Besides wood, amber pieces are occasionally been found on under Cretaceous deposits that have been drilled from a shipworm. More recently, fossil evidence of this form of the circle from the Jurassic have been found in Cuba ..