Drymaeus

Drymaeus is a large genus of medium-sized, air-breathing tropical land snails, terrestrial pulmonate gastropod molluscs belonging to the subfamily Peltellinae within the family Bulimulidae. It is one of the most species-rich genera among Neotropical land mollusks, comprising approximately 300 species distributed from Florida through Central and South America.

==Taxonomy and etymology== The name Drymaeus was first introduced by Johann Christian Albers in 1850 as a subgenus of Bulimus Bruguière, 1789. The name stems from the greek word δρῦς (drys), meaning "tree" or "oak", the word drymaeus itself meaning "lives in the woods". The genus continues to be the subject of active taxonomic and evolutionary research. Currently, it is classified within the family Bulimulidae, a group of mostly arboreal snails in the superfamily Orthalicoidea. Historically, classification within Drymaeus has relied heavily on shell morphology, but this approach has proven problematic due to extensive phenotypic plasticity and convergent evolution. As a result, several species were misclassified or synonymized prematurely.