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Family  Cryptoplacidae

Cryptoplacid chitons

This is a small family of very elongate, worm-like chitons. There is only one genus, Cryptoplax, which occurs throughout the Indo-West Pacific region. Species have valves reduced in size, not in contact in adults, embedded in a wide, densely spiculose girdle.

Family Reference:

• Iredale, T. & Basset Hull, A.F. 1927 Family Cryptoconchidae Pp. 64-90 in A Monograph of the Australian Loricates. Royal Zoological Society of New South Wales, Sydney. 168 pp. (This is a consolidated and repaginated version of the same material that was published in sections in The Australian Zoologist over the years 1923-1927).

• Gowlett-Holmes, K. 1998. Family Cryptoplacidae. P. 189 in Beesley, P.L., Ross, G.J.B. & Wells, A. (eds) Mollusca: The Southern Synthesis. Fauna of Australia. Vol. 5. CSIRO Publishing: Melbourne. Part B. viii 565-1234 pp.

• Gowlett-Holmes, K. 2001. Cryptoplacidae. Pp 45-48 in Wells, A. & Houston, W.W.K. (eds) Zoological catalogue of Australia. Vol. 17.2 Mollusca: Aplacophora, Polyplacophora, Scaphopoda, Cephalopoda. Melbourne: CSIRO Publishing, Australia.

• Kaas, P. & Van Belle, R. This family was not treated by Kaas and van Belle.

Coverage:

The only species of Cryptoplax known from NSW is detailed here.

Cryptoplax iredalei Ashby, 1923 was recorded as a NSW species in the NSW checklist (Iredale & McMichael, 1962) , but it is not included as a NSW species in the subsequent list of Gowlett-Holmes (2001, p. 41). There are no specimens from NSW in the Australian Museum collection. Therefore, it is accordingly removed from the NSW list.

Identification Notes:

Members of this family are easily identified by the elongate body, small valves and spiculose girdle.

See the introduction to Acanthochitonidae for an explanation of shell characters.