White hoof snail
| White hoof snail | ||||||||||||
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Shell of the white coofelk ( Hipponix antiquatus ) |
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| Systematics | ||||||||||||
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| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Hipponix antiquatus | ||||||||||||
| ( Linnaeus , 1767) |
The White Hufschnecke ( Hipponix antiquatus ) is a worm - type from the family of Hufschnecken (Hipponicidae) in the group of Caenogastropoda that in the eastern Pacific Ocean and the western Atlantic Ocean is widespread.
features
The white hoof snail has a thick, conical to cap-shaped shell , which in adult snails reaches a maximum length of 1.7 cm and a width of up to 1.6 cm. At the base, the outline is concave. The apex is bluntly pointed and curved behind. The sculpting of the housing surface can vary: the surface is sometimes smooth, but it is often folded by rough, leaf-like supports. As with other coofs, there is a conspicuous, funnel-shaped to horseshoe-shaped limestone plate for the insertion of the muscles, and an operculum is missing. The shell is white or yellowish-white in color.
The foot of the white coiffure has a large disc-shaped section with which the snail deposits a plate of lime adhering to the substrate. The hoof snail sits on it as a sessile animal .
nutrition
The white hoof snail eats detritus , microscopic algae and their debris, which it picks up from the substrate surface with its strong, muscular proboscis . As a sessile animal, it is therefore dependent on constant sedimentation of organic material in its environment through water movements. The food particles and grains of sand with adhering food in the intestine are up to 2 mm long and 0.5 mm wide. They are transported from the outside into the esophagus with the help of the radula , from where they are transported further into the stomach by vigorous eyelashing.
distribution and habitat
Hipponix antiquatus is widespread in the western Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea on the coasts of Florida and the Antilles , but also in the eastern Pacific Ocean from California , along the west coast of Mexico to Ecuador and the Galapagos Islands . The snail lives in shallow water, hidden under stones or in crevices.
Development cycle
Hipponix antiquatus is a protandric hermaphrodite according to observations by Yonge (1953 and 1960) . As males they have a shell length of 6 to 10 mm, as females from 7 to 20 mm; the sex change takes place with a variable shell size. At the male stage, penises were observed, while the female animals had a fallopian tube , egg capsule glands, and a receptaculum seminis in which sperm were observed in some individuals. The pairing process is unknown, however. In its mantle cavity, the female collects about 6 to 8 up to 840 µm thick egg capsules, each containing up to 50 yellowish, yolk-rich eggs with a diameter of about 350 µm. The egg capsules are each attached with a stalk to the plate of lime on which the snail rests, and are hatched here under the propodium . The phase as a freely swimming Veliger larva is omitted; crawling snails hatch from the capsules.
literature
- R. Tucker Abbott, Percy A. Morris: A Field Guide to Shells: Atlantic and Gulf Coasts and the West Indies. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Boston 2001, p. 177.
- Charles Maurice Yonge (1953): Observations on Hipponix Antiquatus (Linnaeus). Proceedings of the California Academy of Sciences, 4th series, 28, pp. 1-24, 1953.
- Charles Maurice Yonge (1960): Further observations on Hipponix antiquatus with notes on North Pacific pulmonate limpets. Proceedings of the California Academy of Sciences, 4th series, 31 (5), pp. 111-119.
Web links
- Family Hipponicidae - Coofs - Fischhaus Zepkow
Individual evidence
- ↑ Klaus Bandel (1982): Morphology and formation of the early ontogenetic housing in conchiferous mollusks. Facies 7, pp. 1–198, here p. 108.