The genus Zonites, which includes 26 extant species, is distributed in the northeastern Mediterranean area and exhibits significant diversity and endemism.
Description
The
shell of species in this genus is more or less transparent, subdepressed and contains an
umbilicus. The
aperture is semilunar and usually lacks teeth. The outer lip is thin and sharp.
The animal is elongate and is able to retract completely within its shell. It has a more or less developed
caudal mucous pit. The mantle lobes are small and not reflected on to the shell. The genital orifice is somewhat distant from the right
tentacle. The jaw is marked by a median rostrum. The lateral teeth of the
radula are bicuspidate, while the marginal teeth are sharp and narrowly unicuspidate.[3]
In the course of time many species have been included in the genus Zonites that have become taxa inquirenda or synonyms that now belong to different other genera.
References
^Montfort D. de (1810). Conchyliologie systématique, et classification méthodique des coquilles; offrant leurs figures, leur arrangement générique, leurs descriptions caractéristiques, leurs noms; ainsi que leur synonymie en plusieurs langues. Ouvrage destiné à faciliter l'étude des coquilles, ainsi que leur disposition dans les cabinets d'histoire naturelle. Coquilles univalves, non cloisonnées. Tome second. pp. [1-3], 1-676. Paris.
^
abcFontaine B.,
Bouchet P., Van Achterberg K., Alonso-Zarazaga M. A., Araujo R. et al. (2007). "The European union’s 2010 target: Putting rare species in focus." Biological Conservation139: 167-185. Table 2 on the page 173.
doi:
10.1016/j.biocon.2007.06.012.
PDF.
Bank, R. A. (2017). Classification of the Recent terrestrial Gastropoda of the World. Last update: July 16, 2017