Pelican foot
| Pelican foot | ||||||||||||
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Pelican foot ( Aporrhais pespelecani ) |
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| Systematics | ||||||||||||
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| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Aporrhais pespelecani | ||||||||||||
| Linnaeus , 1758 |
The pelican foot ( Aporrhais pespelecani ) is a marine snail that occurs in the northeast Atlantic from Iceland to Morocco and in the Mediterranean on muddy bottoms at depths of 10 to 180 meters. The snail is also found in the North Sea , the Kattegat and the English Channel .
features
The pelican foot is up to 5 cm long. In adult animals, the outer lip of the mouth of the housing is drawn out into several long tips and thus resembles a waterbird's foot. The light brown, red-brown or yellowish housing has eight to ten whorls and is ribbed. In the North Sea, however, the pelican foot is rather rare these days. The finds on the beach are ancient housings. This can be recognized by the bluish color.
Way of life
Pelican feet usually live buried in the sandy soil and feed on fine food particles that they filter from the stream of water that flows through their gills. If they move on, they crawl a little and then pull the housing with a jerk. They reproduce through eggs from which planktonic Veliger larvae hatch.
literature
- Harry Erhardt, Horst Moosleitner: Mergus Sea Water Atlas. Volume 2: Invertebrates . Mergus-Verlag, Melle 1997, ISBN 3-88244-112-7 .
- Klaus Janke, Bruno P. Kremer: Dune, Beach and Wadden Sea. Animals and plants of our coasts. Kosmos (Franckh-Kosmos), 4th edition June 2006, ISBN 3-44009-576-2 .
Web links
- Video: Aporrhais pespelecani (Prosobranchia) - Lokomotion . Institute for Scientific Film (IWF) 1967, made available by the Technical Information Library (TIB), doi : 10.3203 / IWF / E-1108 .