Shaggy sapling snail
| Shaggy sapling snail | ||||||||||||
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Shaggy tree snail ( Dendronotus frondosus ) |
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| Dendronotus frondosus | ||||||||||||
| ( Ascanius , 1774) |
The shaggy tree snail or common tree snail ( Dendronotus frondosus ) is a snail from the nudibranch suborder that lives at the bottom of the seas and does not have a house. It can be found on polyp sticks and in tidal pools in the North Atlantic , in the English Channel and in the North Sea as well as on the Pacific coast of North America as far as Los Angeles .
Appearance
The tree snail could initially be mistaken for a piece of seaweed or another aquatic plant. This is due to the fact that the elongated body is covered with up to nine tree-like branching back appendages. The club-shaped head feelers with lamellar tips also have this unusual, branched shape. The tree snail is milky white, sometimes almost gray. There are drawings on her body in brown, red and white. The snail becomes about ten centimeters long.
Way of life
Due to the dorsal extensions, which are reminiscent of plants, the body contour is completely dissolved and the animal is thus very well camouflaged. It feeds on the polyps of Hydrozoenkolonien , especially the Tubularia species, which scans it systematically. Younger animals prefer smaller polyps of the species Sertularia cupressina and Dynamena pumila .
literature
- Carol M. Lalli and Ronald W. Gilmer: Pelagic Snails: The Biology of Holoplanktonic Gastropod Mollusks. 259 S., Stanford, Calif., Stanford Univ. Pr., 1989 ISBN 0-8047-1490-8