Leptochiton Gray, 1847

Sirenko, Boris, 2020, New Zealand and Australian species of the genus Leptochiton (Mollusca Polyplacophora), Zootaxa 4851 (3), pp. 401-449 : 402

Genus Leptochiton Gray, 1847

Type species. Chiton cinereus sensu Montagu, 1803 (non Linnaeus, 1767) = Leptochiton asellus ( Gmelin, 1791) fide Lovén (1846), by subsequent designation ( Gray 1847).

Genus distribution. Worldwide, Carboniferous–Recent, intertidal– 7,657 m.

Remarks. Based on a molecular analysis by Sigwart et al. (2010), the genus Leptochiton is not monophyletic. Morphological studies of the genus Leptochiton revealed some groups of species that possess a set of similar features, which include the shell, girdle, radula, and gills. Most of these groups inhabit a more or less restricted area, but several groups, mainly of deep-water leptochitons, are widely distributed in the world oceans. Probably the first species of each of these groups originated from different ancestors of the family Leptochitonidae resulting in the polyphyletic character of the genus Leptochiton .