Ampullariidae

Ampullariidae, common name the apple snails, is a family of large freshwater snails, aquatic gastropod mollusks with a gill and an operculum. This family is in the superfamily Ampullarioidea and is the type family of that superfamily. The Ampullariidae are unusual because they have both a gill and a lung, with the mantle cavity being divided in order to separate the two types of respiratory structures. This adaptation allows these snails to be amphibious. This family consists of two following subfamilies (according to the taxonomy of the Gastropoda by Bouchet & Rocroi, 2005), that used classification by Berthold (1991): Ampullariidae are probably of Gondwanan origin. The diversification of Ampullariidae started probably after the separation of African Plate and South American Plate. The oldest known ampullariids from Africa and Asia are 160 millions years old. The oldest known ampullariids from America are 50 millions years old. The sister group of Ampullariidae has not been clearly identified yet. A cladogram showing phylogenic relations of only 6 genera of Ampullariidae by Jørgensen et al. (2008): There are nine extant genera in the family Ampullariidae: