Antisabia

Antisabia
Antisabia foliacea
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Mollusca
Class: Gastropoda
(unranked): clade Caenogastropoda
clade Hypsogastropoda
clade Littorinimorpha
Superfamily: Vanikoroidea
Family: Hipponicidae
Species: Antisabia
Iredale, 1937
Species

See text

Antisabia, common name hoof shells or hoof snails, is a genus of small sea snails, limpet-like marine gastropod molluscs in the family Hipponicidae. [1]

Distribution

This genus is distributed worldwide in warm seas.

Description

The sedentary species in this genus live on the underside of stones or commensally with their shells loosely attached to other and larger gastropods or invertebrates. This commensalism results in some morphological changes : a thin basal plate, a very long snout and a small osphradium. They live in colonies with a few big females are surrounded by many smaller males. The egg mass is kept within the female shell. When the eggs hatch, a few young escape at the crawling stage. [2]

Genera

Antisabia foliacea, ventral view

Genera within the genus Antisabia include: [3]

References

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the 5/31/2012. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.