Fossil Clausilioidea in space and time, with special emphasis on Cretaceous and pre-Oligocene Cenozoic Clausiliidae (Gastropoda: Stylommatophora)

With this paper the insufficient knowledge of the Clausilioidea from Cretaceous and pre-Oligocene Cenozoic shall be improved, in order to supply information for the research work on the phylogeny of that superfamily. The first chapter deals with the characters and the distribution of the non-clausiliid families of the superfamily, Filholiidae and Palaeostoidae. The relations of those two families and the Clausiliidae are discussed, and the superfamily Clausilioidea is defined. In the second chapter the characters and distribution of the Clausiliidae from Cretaceous and pre-Oligocene Cenozoic are described. It is shown that the groups belonging to differ from the post-Eocene and most extant Clausiliidae by a shell with few whorls (oligogyry); several subgroups are characterized by a special shell shape (oospiry). The correlation of the faunal changes of the Clausiliidae through the Cenozoic (NORDSIECK 2007) with climate changes is discussed.