Melongenidae

Females of melongena corona lays eggs

The Melongenidae, German crown snails and worms are pears, one with about 30 species rather small family of medium-sized to very large marine snails that are found in tropical and temperate seas. The representatives of the family are carnivores and scavengers.

Features

The dextral housing the Melongenidae a large, egg-shaped casing mouth with a smooth inner lip and an open, wide and short or long and narrow Siphonalkanal. It is 2.5 up to 58 cm in size in adult snails. The whorls are up to the seam back often busy with nodes or spines, which then give the shells, the typical shape of the crown. The periostracum is thick. The thick, horny operculum is claw- shaped with a terminal nucleus.

Unlike the similar externally designed Fasciolariidae these snails are not colored red. They have a long, narrow head with moderately short probes, outside the eyes are at their base, and a very long, extensible proboscis. The foot is large and strong.

The animals are dioecious with internal fertilization. Eggs are laid in clusters or strings of egg capsules in which runs the larval development so that young snails hatch finished.

Life, the occurrence and distribution

The Melongenidae are widespread in tropical and temperate seas. They usually live in shallow sea water on sand and mud. The types of Melongenidae are primarily scavengers, some predators that feed on large shells.

The Melongenidae include, among others living in the western Atlantic American crown screw ( melongena corona ), the West Indian Crown ( Melongena melongena ) of the Caribbean, which occurs on the Pacific coast of America Pacific crown screw ( Melongena patula ) and the Indo-Pacific abundant type Pugilina cochlidium and also pears as snails designated representative of the genus Volema, including Volema paradisiaca in the Indian Ocean and Volema myristica to the Philippines and Indonesia.

System

After Bouchet and Rocroi ( 2005), the family Melongenidae one of six families in the superfamily Buccinoidea. You divide the family Melongenidae into two subfamilies:

• Melongeninae Gill, 1871 (1854) - Synonyms: Cassidulidae Gray, 1854 ( void ); Galeodidae Thiele, 1925 ( void ); Volemidae Winckworth, 1945; Heligmotomidae Adegoke, 1977
• Echinofulgurinae Petuch, 1994

Earlier also the genera Busycon and Busycotypus were counted among the Melongenidae. On the basis of anatomical studies of the digestive system and a cladistic analysis on a molecular genetic basis by Kosyan and Kantor (2004), these two genera were asked to the family Buccinidae.