Monoplacophora

Monoplacophorans
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Mollusca
Class:	Monoplacophora; Odhner, 1940
Orders
	Cyrtonellida; Tryblidiida; Pelagiellida;

Monoplacophora is a class of mollusks thought to be extinct for the past 350 million years until in April 1952 a living animal was dredged up from deep marine sediments in the Middle America Trench off the Pacific coast of Costa Rica,. It was named Neopilina by its discoverer, Danish biologist Dr. Henning Lemche ^[1]. The study of mollusks experiences few shattering moments, but in this case the "discovery [of living Monoplacophora] has been described as 'the most dramatic one in the history of malacology.'" (Clausen). So far, more than two dozen living species of Monoplacophora have been discovered. The name "Monoplacophora" means 'bearing one plate'. All the present species live deep down in ocean trenches. An attempt at a common name, gastroverm, has proved unsuccessful.^[2]

Taxonomy

Order Tryblidiida

Family Laevipilinidae
- Genus Laevipilina J. H. McLean, 1979
  - Species Laevipilina antarctica Warén & Hain, 1992
  - Species Laevipilina cachuchensis Urgorri, García-Alvarez & Luque, 2005
  - Species Laevipilina hyalina J. H. McLean, 1979
  - Species Laevipilina rolani Warén & Bouchet, 1990
  - Species Laevipilina theresae Schrödl, 2006
Family Micropilinidae
- Genus Micropilina Warén, 1989
  - Species Micropilina arntzi Warén and Hain, 1992
  - Species Micropilina minuta Warén, 1989
  - Species Micropilina rakiura Marshall, 1998
  - Species Micropilina reingi Marshall, 2006
  - Species Micropilina tangaroa Marshall, 1992
  - Species Micropilina wareni Marshall, 2006
Family Monoplacophoridae
- Genus Monoplacophorus Moskalev, Starobogatov & Filatova, 1983
  - Species Monoplacophorus zenkevitchi Moskalev, Starobogatov & Filatova, 1983
Family Neopilinidae
- Genus Adenopilina Starobogatov & Moskalev, 1987
  - Species Adenopilina adenensis (Tebble, 1967)
- Genus Neopilina H. Lemche, 1957
  - Species Neopilina bruuni Menzies, 1968
  - Species Neopilina galatheae Lemche, 1957
  - Species Neopilina rebainsi Moskalev, Starobogatov & Filatova, 1983
- Genus Rokopella Starobogatov & Moskalev, 1987
  - Species Rokopella brummeri Goud and Gittenberger, 1993
  - Species Rokopella capulus Marshall, 2006
  - Species Rokopella euglypta (Dautzenberg and Fischer, 1897)
  - Species Rokopella goesi (Warén, 1988)
  - Species Rokopella oligotropha (Rokop, 1972)
  - Species Rokopella segonzaci Warén and Bouchet, 2001
- Genus Veleropilina Starobogatov & Moskalev, 1987
  - Species Veleropilina reticulata (Seguenza, 1876)
  - Species Veleropilina veleronis (Menzies and Layton, 1963)
  - Species Veleropilina zografi (Dautzenberg and Fischer, 1896)
- Genus Vema (Clarke & Menzies, 1959)
  - Species Vema bacescui (Menzies, 1968)
  - Species Vema ewingi (Clarke and Menzies, 1959)
  - Species Vema levinae Waren, 1996
  - Species Vema occidua Marshall, 2006

Notes

^ "New Pilina": Pilina was a monoplacophore that lived during Silurian times. Galathea was the name of the Danish research vessel that recovered it.
^ Sara S. Bretsky, in reviewing R. Tucker Abbott's popularization, Kingdom of the Seashell in The Quarterly Review of Biology (vol. 49.1 (March 1974), p. 85) declared that she found "gastroverm" "singularly unattractive" and, by and large, writers since have tacitly agreed. "Monoplacophore" remains the common usage.

References

Horný, Radwan 1963. On the systematic position of cyrtonelloids (Mollusca). Časopsis národního Muzea, oddil přírodovědný, 132: 90–93, Prague.
Lemche, Henning 1957. A new living deep-sea mollusc of the Cambro-Devonian class Monoplacophora. Nature, 179: 413–416, London.
Lemche, Henning, in Marie Jenkins. 1972. The Curious Mollusks, New York.
Rozov, S. N. 1975. A new order of the Monoplacophora. Paleontological Journal, 9: 39–43, Washington.
Wingstrand, Karl Georg 1985. On the anatomy and relationships of recent Monoplacophora. Galathea Report, 16: 7–94, Leiden & Copenhagen.
V. Urgorri, O. García-Álvarez and Á. Luque (2005). "Laevipilina Cachuchensis, A New Neopilinid (Mollusca: Tryblidia) From Off North Spain". Journal of Molluscan Studies. 71 (1): 59-66.
Michael Schrödl, Katrin Linse and Enrico Schwabe (August 2006). "Review on the distribution and biology of Antarctic Monoplacophora, with first abyssal record of Laevipilina antarctica". Polar Biology. 29 (9): 721-727.

External links

Anatomy
Conrad D. Clausen, "Neopilina"; a living fossil" Creationist perspective on the discovery
DiscoverLife: Taxonomy of Monoplacophora
Animal Diversity Web: Monoplacophora
Washington Nature Mapping Program: Monoplacophora

[1] "New Pilina": Pilina was a monoplacophore that lived during Silurian times. Galathea was the name of the Danish research vessel that recovered it.

[2] Sara S. Bretsky, in reviewing R. Tucker Abbott's popularization, Kingdom of the Seashell in The Quarterly Review of Biology (vol. 49.1 (March 1974), p. 85) declared that she found "gastroverm" "singularly unattractive" and, by and large, writers since have tacitly agreed. "Monoplacophore" remains the common usage.

[1]

[2]