[Taxacom] Are slugs subgroup(s) of snails

[Frederick W Schueler]

Stephen Thorpe wrote:
> And what about semislugs?! Slugs with visible shells that they can't withdraw into completely! Come on, the whole point with common names is that they are not perfectly precise in meaning - that is why we need scientific names. There is no answer to the question: is a slug also a snail? Actually, this quite nicely illustrates the tendency of certain personality types, common on the list, to try to find perfect  precision where none exists, either in the Code, or in meaning of 'slug'...

* a snail is a Gastropod with a coiled shell, a limpet is a Gastropod 
with a non-coiled, umbrella-like shell, and slug is a Gastropod without 
enough shell to retreat into. Both of the latter are polyphyletic 
life-style choices, and the former is hugely paraphyletic, so none of 
them need the name of an author appended.

The above was written without consulting wiki-anything, or the EoL.

fred.
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            Bishops Mills Natural History Centre
          Frederick W. Schueler & Aleta Karstad
       RR#2 Bishops Mills, Ontario, Canada K0G 1T0
    on the Smiths Falls Limestone Plain 44* 52'N 75* 42'W
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If we'd been meant to refer to species by made-up vernacular names,
                God wouldn't have created Linnaeus!
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