Green velvet snail
| Green velvet snail | ||||||||||
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Green velvet snails ( Elysia viridis ) |
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| Systematics | ||||||||||
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| Scientific name | ||||||||||
| Elysia viridis | ||||||||||
| Montagu , 1804 |
The green velvet snail ( Elysia viridis ) is a marine species from the genus Elysia in the family Placobranchidae from the suborder of the gullet snails (Sacoglossa) from the order of the hind gill snails (Opisthobranchia).
description
Elysia viridis has an elongated body with a pair of head tentacles and two gill appendages protruding from the body (reminiscent of wings) on the back of the back 2/3 of the body. The snail reaches a length of up to 3 cm, but often remains significantly smaller. The body is green, whereby the color can vary from light green to dark green to dark brown-green or black-green and has light points of green, blue or red color - the surface appears to have a velvety texture.
distribution
Elysia viridis occurs in the Mediterranean and Atlantic as well as in the North Sea and the western Baltic Sea (up to about the Belt Sea ).
Way of life
Elysia viridis is already in the low depth before the shallow water where they on algae , seaweed overgrown hard or soft ground and sea grass alive. It grazes on algae; Algae cells (or chloroplasts ) are not digested, but continue to photosynthesize in the snail's body (see kleptoplasty ), which leads to the snail's green color. This enables the snail (depending on the incidence of light) to get along without food for several months - a characteristic that only occurs in species of the genus Elysia .
Elysia viridis is a hermaphrodite .
swell
- Green velvet snail. Underwater world Baltic Sea.
- Green velvet snail (Elysia viridis (Montagu, 1804)). AK TaucherMonitoring der Ostsee des BUND ( Memento from February 12, 2013 in the web archive archive.today ).
- Green snail (Elysia viridis). In: Alfred Brehm : Brehms Thierleben . Ninth Volume, Fourth Division: Invertebrates, Second Volume: The Lower Animals. Verlag des Bibliographisches Institut, Leipzig 1887, pp. 319–320.
- Bart Teugels, Steven Bouillon, Bart Veuger et al .: Kleptoplasts mediate nitrogen acquisition in the sea slug Elysia viridis. In: Aquatic Biology. Vol. 4, 2008, pp. 15-21 (PDF, 350 kB).
Web links
- Christian Baumeister: Expeditions into the animal kingdom: Portugal - Europe's wild west. NDR , 2019 (on the green velvet snail in the Algarve : min. 38:37 to 40:21)