Plectopylidae is a taxonomic family of large air-breathing land snails, terrestrial pulmonate gastropod mollusks in the superfamily Plectopyloidea.

Distribution

The range of the family Plectopylidae (Plectopylis Benson 1860 s. l.) extends from Nepal and Northeastern India through large part of Southeastern Asia (including the Malay Peninsula, Northern Thailand, Northern Vietnam, Central and Southern China) to Taiwan and Southern Japan. Up to now, the distribution of Plectopylidae is divided into two geographic regions: (1) Nepal, Northeastern India (Assam and Arunachal Pradesh), Myanmar, western Yunnan, western part of Thailand, Northern Malaysia and northwestern part of Laos, and (2) Northern Vietnam, Southern China (west of the Eastern Yunnan–Guizhou–Middle Sichuan line), Taiwan and the Ryukyu Islands.

Taxonomy

This family has two subfamilies:

Genera

Genera within the family Plectopylidae include: Gerard Kalshoven Gude revised every known taxon of Plectopylis at the end of the 19th century, and he published drawings of their shells and armature (lamella complex). He subdivided Plectopylis into seven “sections”: Endothyra, Chersaecia, Endoplon, Plectopylis, Sinicola, Enteroplax Gude, 1899 and Sykesia Gude, 1897. Enteroplax was transferred to the family Strobilopsidae Wenz, 1915. Ruthvenia Gude, 1911 (replacement name for Sykesia which itself was a replacement name for Austenia Gude, 1897) was transferred to the family Endodontidae Pilsbry, 1895 or to the Charopidae Hutton, 1884. The name Endothyrella was established by Zilch (1960) to replace the generic name Endothyra Gude, 1899, that is a junior homonym of foraminiferan genus Endothyra Phillips, 1845. Genus Amphicoelina Haas, 1933 was classified within Plectopylidae before, but it was moved to Camaenidae in 2013. Gude's diagnoses of his sections are based on the direction of the coiling of the shell, the depth of the umbilicus, and the morphology and direction of the palatal folds. Most of Gude's diagnoses are not mutually exclusive. Moreover, several species were misassigned by Gude, which was probably the result of focusing exclusively on the morphology of the parietal plicae. Most of plectopylid species were reviewed and some were reassigned by Barna Páll-Gergely and his colleagues in 2013-2016.

Overview of species

Species within the family Plectopylidae include: Fossil species:

Ecology

Plectopylid species seem to be associated with calcareous areas in Vietnam. Living specimens occur at the base of large limestone rocks surrounded by leaf litter and humus. Thus, they are not rock-dwelling but ground-dwelling. Most living species have reticulated sculpture on the dorsal shell side, which is often covered with soil and this may be of value in providing camouflage.