The earliest reports on Afghanistan molluscs consists of scattered descriptions of materials gathered on various military expeditions.[1] Only the reports of Thomas Hutton (zoologist) (1834, 1849–1850),[2][3] who recorded 21 species, and César Marie Félix Ancey (1893),[4] who listed 27 taxa, are at all comprehensive.[1]Nelson Annandale & Baini Prashad (1919)[5] issued a voluminous report on freshwater collections from the southwestern deserts, and Jaeckel (1956)[6] recorded 27 species taken by an entomological survey team (see Klapperich, 1954).[1][7] Jaeckel (1956) summarized previous work, evaluated records, and concluded that there were 37 species known from Afghanistan.[1]Ilya Mikhailovich Likharev & Yaroslav Igorevich Starobogatov (1967)[8] had available extensive materials taken from 127 collecting stations between 1957 and 1962.[1] Their report covered 53 species represented by new material, with an additional 14 names carried over from earlier reports, but not verified from their collecting.[1]
Alan Solem have reported 10 new taxa (3 newly described species and 6 found species) that were previously not known from Afghanistan in 1979.[1] Up to 1979, 73 taxa of molluscs have been recorded from Afghanistan.[1]
It is obvious that knowledge of the Afghanistan molluscan fauna is in a very preliminary stage.[1] The same statements apply to surrounding areas, with the exception of Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan in the north (that were part of the U.S.S.R. at that time), where the summary volumes of Likharev & Rammel'meier (1962)[9] and Anatoliy Alexeyevich Schileyko (1978)[10] provide a solid basis of comparative knowledge.[1] The probability of additional taxa existing is very high, particularly among the Helicoidea and Enidae.[1] Since the Street collections (from Street Expedition of 1962-1963) were made incidentally to mammal collecting, the relatively high percentage of unrecorded taxa suggests that only the tip of Afghanistan molluscan diversity has been sampled.[1] In the 2000s the molluscan fauna is still incompletely known (also with the neighbouring Iran).[11]
Pupisoma orcula (Benson, 1850)[1] - non-indigenous. This Least Concern species endemic to Micronesia, but one broken specimen was found to be introduced in Afghanistan.[1] There are no other species of molluscs listed in the 2010 IUCN Red List for Afghanistan.[13]
^Annandale N. & Prashad B. (1919). "The Mollusca of the Inland Waters of Baluchistan and of Seistan, with a note on the Liver-Fluke of Sheep in Seistan". Records of the Indian Museum18(1): 17-63, figs. 1-9, plates 3-8.
^(in Russian)Likharev I. M. & Starobogatov Ya. I. (1967). ["On the molluscan fauna of Afghanistan"]. Trudy Zoologicheskogo Instituta Akademii nauk SSR42: 159-197, 19 text figs., 2 tables.
^Likharev I. M. & Rammel'meier E. S. (1962). Terrestrial Mollusks of the Fauna of the U.S.S.R. Keys to the Fauna of the U.S.S.R.43 574 pp., 420 figs. (English translation published for the National Science Foundation by the Israel Program for Scientific Translations).
^Schileyko A. A. (1978). Land Mollusks of the Superfamily Helicoidea. Molluski, vol. III, pt. 6, Akad. Nauk, Fauna SSSR, n. s., 117, pp. 1-384, 21 plates., 471 text figs.
^ abcdefghKantor Yu I., Vinarski M. V., Schileyko A. A. & Sysoev A. V. (published online on December 22, 2009). "Catalogue of the continental mollusks of Russia and adjacent territories". Version 2.3.
^IUCN 2010. IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Version 2010.2. <www.iucnredlist.org>. Downloaded on 28 July 2010. (Search by taxonomy: MOLLUSCA. Search by location: Afghanistan).
^Altena C. O. van Regteren (1975). "Notes on Land Slugs, 22: A Catalogue of the Genus Lytopelte (Limacidae) and a Note on L. kandaharensis (Altena)". The Nautilus89(2): 62-63.
Further reading
Anonymous. (1910). "Land and Freshwater Mollusca of India including south Arabia, Baluchistan, Afghanistan, Kashmir, Nepal, Ceylon". Conchologia Indica 2, Pp XI London.
Godwin-Austen H. H. (1882–1920). Land and freshwater mollusca of India, including South Arabia, Baluchistan, Afghanistan, Kashmir, Nepal, Burma, Pegu, Tenasserim, Malaya Peninsula, Ceylon and other islands of the Indian Ocean; Supplementary to Masers Theobald and Hanley's Conchologica Indica. Taylor and Francis, London. VI+257+ 442+65 pp., 165 pls. Published in parts:
(1889) Volume I + plates; 1882: pp. I–VI, 1–66, pls. 1–12; 1883: pp. 67–164, pls. 13–42; 1884: pls. 43–51; 1886: pp. 165–206; 1887: pls. 52–62; 1888: pp. 207–257.
(1889–1914) volume 2 + plates; 1897: pp. 1–46, pls. 63–69; 1898: pp. 47–86, pls. 70–82; 1899: pp. 87–146, pls. 83–100; 1907: pp. 147–238, pls. 101–117; 1910: pp. 239–310, pls. 118–132; 1914: pp. 311–442, pls. 133–158;
