Open sea almond

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Open sea almond
Open sea almond (Philine aperta)

Open sea almond ( Philine aperta )

Systematics
Superordinate : Hind gill (Opisthobranchia)
Subordination : Head shield snails (Cephalaspidea)
Superfamily : Philinoidea
Family : Philinidae
Genre : Philine
Type : Open sea almond
Scientific name
Philine aperta
( Linnaeus , 1767)
Philine aperta , Natural History: Mollusca (1854), p. 147.

The sand slug ( Philine aperta ) is a screw from the family philinidae in the order of the cephalaspidea (Cephalaspidea) extending from polychaetes and mollusks fed. It lives in all three major oceans as well as in the North Sea and Baltic Sea . It is also called the "open bladder snail", which can lead to confusion with the completely different bladder snail .

features

Philine aperta , whose head disk is very wide and whose foot is provided with extensive side margins, becomes up to 3 cm long in the North Sea and up to 10 cm long in South Africa. The snail is translucent milky to yellowish white with opaque white spots. The egg-shaped, colorless, thin-walled and weakly curled snail shell , which in adult snails reaches 9 mm in length and 7 mm in width (in South Africa up to 2 cm in length), has a very wide mouth and is completely covered by the mantle .

distribution

The species is found in the Mediterranean , in the Atlantic on the Canary Islands and on the African coast from South Africa to Norway , in the North Sea and the western Baltic Sea . They can also be found in the Pacific and Indian Ocean , including around Sri Lanka and the Philippines .

habitat

It lives up to a depth of 500 m, mainly in sandy and silty soils, where it digs through the sediment just below the surface .

Life cycle

It is estimated that open sea almonds can live for around 3 to 4 years. The snails are hermaphrodites who mate with one another with their penises . In the North Sea they lay bottle-shaped egg clutches from spring to summer, which can contain up to 50,000 white eggs. After a few days, Veliger larvae hatch , feed on plankton and after several months metamorphose into juvenile snails .

food

The open sea almond feeds on polychaetes as well as small snails and mussels , which are devoured with the proboscis as a whole, along with fresh carrion . Young animals mainly feed on foraminifera . In Red Wharf Bay ( Anglesey ) - apart from a few mussels - combworms of the genus Pectinaria were observed almost exclusively as food, while in Plymouth and Elsinore snails of the genera Polystomella , crack snails (Rissoidae) and the species Turbonilla elegantissima were also prey. In addition, remains of sea urchins and cnidarians have been found in the intestines of Philine aperta .

Enemies

The enemies include haddock and flatfish .

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Guido Zsilavecz (2007): Nudibranchs of the Cape Peninsula and False Bay . Southern Underwater Research Group press, Cape Town 2007. ISBN 0-620-38054-3
  2. ↑ Erwin Stresemann (Ed.): Excursions fauna. Invertebrates I. SH Jaeckel: Mollusca . Volk und Wissen, Berlin 1986. S. 136. Philinidae: Philine aperta (L.).

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