Radix Montfort, 1810

Gloeer, Peter & Pesic, Vladimir, 2012, The freshwater snails (Gastropoda) of Iran, with descriptions of two new genera and eight new species, ZooKeys 219, pp. 11-61 : 24

Genus Radix Montfort, 1810

Type species.

Helix auricularia Linnaeus, 1758

Remarks.

Hubendick (1951) grouped most Radix spp. from the Near East (i.e. Radix tenera , Radix euphratica - «Mesopotamia», Radix bactriana - Afghanistan, Radix gedrosiana - Iran, Radix rectilabrum - Seistan and Baluchistan, Radix persica - Iran and Radix acuminata - (Bengal, India) under the palaearctic Radix auricularia , but from Europe he lumped all Radix spp. together in three species. Today, five Radix species are known from Europe, confirmed by molecular ( Pfenninger et al. 2006, Schniebs et al. 2011) and anatomical studies ( Glöer 2002). Only a few species can be distinguished by the shells alone (e.g. Radix ampla , Radix auricularia ). Most species show a large morphological plasticity in the shape of the shell, so this character cannot be used for distinguishing species. Ananndale and Prashad (1919) and Annandale and Rao (1923) provided anatomical data of Radix spp., but these drawings are not suitable enough to identify the Radix spp. found by us in Iran. The diagnostic features and taxonomic relationship of the Iranian Radix species require further revision and particularly the application of molecular techniques with topotypes of the species. The following list of Radix species contains the hitherto recorded nominal species, their taxonomic status remains to be explored.