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Family  Trapezidae

Trapezids

The Trapezidae (previously spelt with a double “i” but that spelling rendered it exactly the same as a crustacean family name, so the name of the mollusc was changed to a single “i”) is a family of only about 10 species (Huber, 2010). Most species are marine, living attached in rock crevices or nestling among oysters or in the abandoned burrows of other animals.

There is apparently only one species of Trapezidae known from NSW, Fluviolanatus subtortus (Dunker, 1857), which is highly atypical of the family in shell shape, dentition, habitat and distribution. It lives in areas of low salinity, even freshwater, particularly in coastal lagoons and estuaries where it attaches to vegetation or to the substrate by a fine byssus.

Family References

Huber (2010) treats the species of the family; Morton (1982) described the only NSW species, Fluviolanatus  subtortus, in detail.

Coverage

The only species known from NSW is treated here.

Identification Notes

The species stands out because of its mytiliform shell shape and habitat of brackish to freshwater in lagoons and estuaries.