Cantharidella tesselata

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Cantharidella tesselata
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Mollusca
Class: Gastropoda
Subclass: Prosobranchia
Order: Archaeogastropoda
Superfamily: Trochacea
Family: Trochidae
Genus: Cantharidella
Species: C. tesselata
Binomial name
Cantharidella tesselata
(A. Adams, 1851)

Cantharidella tesselata is a species of sea snail, a marine gastropod mollusc in the family Trochidae, the top snails.

Contents

[edit] Distribution

This species is endemic to New Zealand.

[edit] Habitat

This top shell lives on rocks and brown seaweed in clear water and open coast situations.

[edit] Life habits

This species feeds by scraping up tiny plants and debris which settle on the surface of their seaweed habitat.

[edit] Shell description

The shell is small and globose-turbinate, with a deep narrow umbilicus. It is smooth and polished, but has weak to subsurface fine spiral lirae, more prominent on the base.

In this species, the shell coloration and pattern are extremely variable. It is often regularly tesselated in dark grey on a whitish or pale grey ground, but two other examples of coloration are uniformly chrome-yellow or white or pale green with broad axial scarlet bands. Still others have a tesselated pattern which is interrupted by a white or reddish peripheral zone.

The shell height is up to 8 mm, and the width is up to 8 mm.

[edit] References