font settings

Font Size: Large | Normal | Small
Font Face: Verdana | Geneva | Georgia

Cerion

(Genus)

Overview

[ Back to top ]

Cerion is a of medium-sized air-breathing land snails, terrestrial pulmonate gastropods in the family Cerionidae, sometimes known as the peanut snails.

This is a highly diverse genus with more than 600 described species. It is endemic to the Caribbean region.

The name Cerion is from the Greek word Kerion, signifying honeycomb, and is given to these shells because the form of the spire resembles that of a bee-hive; hence they are called bee-hive shells.1]

The fossil record of Cerion extends to the early Miocene of Florida and possibly to the Upper Cretaceous of Montana, although records older than of Pleistocene age are very rare[2].

Species Within the Genus cerion

[ Back to top ]

Some of the species include:

Photos

[ Back to top ]

Taxonomy

[ Back to top ]

The Genus Cerion is further organized into finer groupings including:

References

[ Back to top ]
  1. ^ Frank Collins Baker: Shells of land and water; a familiar introduction to the study of the mollusks. (1903), Chicago, A.W. Mumford, page 48.
  2. ^ Cerion: a web-based resource for Cerion research and identification

Sources

[ Back to top ]
Last Revised: November 20, 2008