Wide-mouthed purple snail
| Wide-mouthed purple snail | ||||||||||||
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Housing of Plicopurpura patula . Lovell Augustus Reeve , 1843 (Conchologia iconica) |
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| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Plicopurpura patula | ||||||||||||
| ( Linnaeus , 1758) |
The wide-mouthed purple snail ( Plicopurpura patula ) is a snail belonging to the family of spiny snails that is common in the Caribbean and the Eastern Pacific .
features
The large, firm and spindle-shaped to egg-shaped snail shell of Plicopurpura patula , which in adult snails reaches a length of about 9 cm, has a short, blunt thread with offset, rounded, rapidly increasing coils. The very large body is flattened at the top and beaded at the bottom. The case is sculptured with 6 to 7 transverse ribs on which there are pointed knots that become more rounded with increasing age. Flat cross grooves that are wider than the spaces in between run in between. The very large, wide open, oval case mouth ends in a channel. The wide spindle is curved, the outer lip of the case mouth is slightly grooved on the inside. The knots and grooves are usually deep chestnut brown, while the spaces between them are whitish. Gaps and knots can alternate between brown and whitish. Sometimes light-colored bandages run across the lower ribs. The inside of the case mouth is whitish with indistinct ribbons and flames, the furrows and notches blackish and the rest of the inner edge orange-red or entirely dark brown, the spindle yellow-reddish or brown-reddish-yellow with elliptical chestnut-brown spots on the top. The kidney-shaped, longitudinally striped operculum with elliptical rings on the inside is horny and later takes on a deep brown color. A nucleus cannot be seen.
In the event of a malfunction, the snail secretes an initially clear purple pigment that smells of garlic.
Distribution, habitat and way of life
Plicopurpura patula is found in the Caribbean and on the Central American Pacific coast in the intertidal zone on rocky surfaces.
Life cycle
Like other new snails, Plicopurpura patula is sexually separate. After mating, females come together to lay mat-shaped clutches with stalked egg capsules, from which Veliger larvae then hatch.
nutrition
Plicopurpura patula eats snails - especially barnacles - which it attacks by pressing its proboscis under the operculum and peeling off the meat inside the prey shell with the radula . The feeding process can take several hours, with the two snail shells of the predator and the prey being held tightly together.
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. pp. 214f.
- Eugene Herbert Kaplan: A Field Guide to Southeastern and Caribbean Seashores: Cape Hatteras to the Gulf Coast, Florida, and the Caribbean. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Boston 1999. pp. 198, 239.
- Heinrich Carl Küster: The genera Buccinum, Purpura, Concholepas and Monoceros. Bauer & Raspe, Nuremberg 1858. pp. 101f. 10. Linnaeus patula purpura . Panel 20, Fig. 1, Panel 17, Fig. 8. 9.
- Gerard M. Wellington, Armand M. Kuris (1983): Growth and Shell Variation in the Tropical Eastern Pacific Intertidal Gastropod Genus Purpura: Ecological and Evolutionary Implications. The Biological Bulletin 164 (3), pp. 518-535 ( JSTOR ).
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ Joseph C. Britton, Brian Morton: Shore Ecology of the Gulf of Mexico. University of Texas Press, Austin 2014.