Thiaridae
| Thiaridae Temporal range: Lower Cretaceous or Eocene-Recent |
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| A live individual of Red-rimmed melania, Melanoides tuberculata, crawling on the glass of an aquarium | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Mollusca |
| Class: | Gastropoda |
| (unranked): |
clade Caenogastropoda clade Sorbeoconcha |
| Superfamily: | Cerithioidea |
| Family: |
Thiaridae Gill, 1871 (1823) |
| Diversity | |
| about 110 extant species | |
| Synonyms | |
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Melaniidae Children, 1823 |
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clade Sorbeoconcha
Melaniidae Children, 1823
Hemisininae P. Fischer & Crosse, 1891
Melanoididae Ihering, 1909
Pyrguliferidae Delpey, 1941 (n.a.)
Aylacostomatinae Parodiz, 1969
Pachymelaniidae Bandel & Kowalke, 1999
Thiaridae, common name thiarids, is a family of tropical freshwater snails with an operculum, aquatic gastropod mollusks in the superfamily Cerithioidea.
According to the taxonomy of the Gastropoda by Bouchet & Rocroi (2005), the family Thiaridae has no subfamilies.
Many species of freshwater snails that are characterized by a turreted shell were originally placed within the genus Melania Lamarck, 1799. This genus as delimited by authors of the late 19th and early 20th century contained hundreds of species, and was successively split into different groupings. Over time, infrageneric groups (subgenera) were elevated to the rank of independent genera and the genus Melania was elevated to the rank of a family, Melanidae.
However, the genus name Melania Lamarck, 1799 was demonstrated to be a junior synonym of the genus name Thiara Röding, 1798. Consequently, the family had to be renamed Thiaridae. Moreover, the Melanidae as traditionally circumscribed were found to be polyphyletic, containing species from many different groups, which were successively recognized as distinct families, such as the Pachychilidae, Semisulcospiridae, Pleuroceridae, Melanopsidae, and Paludomidae. Therefore, the Thiaridae as currently circumscribed contain fewer species than the Melaniidae.
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