Curved awl snail
| Curved awl snail | ||||||||||||
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Vitreolina philippi |
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| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Vitreolina philippi | ||||||||||||
| ( de Rayneval & Ponzi , 1854) |
The Curved Pfriemschnecke ( Vitreolina Philippines ) is a worm - type from the family of eulimidae (genus Vitreolina ), as Ectoparasite of sea urchins lives and in the northeastern Atlantic Ocean and in the Mediterranean is widespread.
features
Vitreolina philippi has a small, slender, thin-walled and shiny, bright white and transparent snail shell without sculpting and ornamentation or occasionally with very light incremental stripes and varices. In fully grown snails, the shell is about 8 mm long and about 2 to 2.5 mm wide, has 10 to 15 flattened, barely arched passages with flat seams and is sometimes slightly curved along its axis. The circumference of the body takes up about half of the total length of the housing, the mouth of the case less than a third. The narrow, teardrop-shaped housing mouth has an outer lip with an outer bulge that can be seen in a side view.
The head consists of a protruding protrusion, on the underside of which the opening of a trunk that can be turned in and out and on the front edge of two diverging antennae with black eyes sit at the base. The foot is narrow, the sole of the foot with a central groove. The Opercular flaps are large and the same. The snail is white with yellow and red markings.
Distribution and way of life
Vitreolina philippi is widespread in the northeastern Atlantic Ocean and in the Mediterranean along the coasts of Portugal , Spain , France , Ireland and Great Britain to Norway , the German Bight and the western Baltic Sea . It lives on soft subsoil below the intertidal zone down to a depth of around 200 m. It is the most common type of family in the North Sea .
Vitreolina philippi feeds on various sea urchins such as heart urchins , the violet sea urchin ( Sphaerechinus granularis ), the stone sea urchin ( Paracentrotus lividus ) and the black sea urchin ( Arbacia lixula ). In the Mediterranean Sea it seems to prefer the stone sea urchin, but it can also be found on the beach sea urchin ( Psammechinus miliaris ). She looks for her host animals to eat and otherwise lives free.
literature
- Bernhard Klausnitzer: Stresemann - excursion fauna of Germany. Volume 1: Invertebrates (excluding insects). Springer-Verlag, Berlin 2019. P. 172f.
- Paul Chambers: British Seashells: A Guide for Collectors and Beachcombers. Casemate Publishers, Pen & Sword Books, Barnsley (South Yorkshire) 2009. p. 83
- Giovanni Chimienti, Ilaria Savino, Pietro Panetta, Francesco Mastrototaro: Riding the urchins: ectoparasites micromolluscs. July 2017, Conference: SIBM Congress 2017, Rome (Italy), Biologia Marina Mediterranea 24 (1), pp. 106-107.
Web links
- MJ de Kluijver, SS Ingalsuo, RH de Bruyne: Vitreolina philippi (Rayneval & Ponzi, 1854). Marine Species Identification Portal
Individual evidence
- ↑ Constantine Mifsud (1990): Vitreolina philippi (Ponzi, de Rayneval & van den Heck, 1854) found living on the echinoid Paracentrotus lividus (Lamarck) in infralittoral Maltese waters. Bolletino Malacologico 26, pp. 165-168.
- ^ A. Bertrand: Four specimens living on the dorsal face of a Psammechinus miliaris (PLS Müller, 1771), seen at low tide, among rocks, Saint-Jean-de-Luz, Iparraide, SW France.