Smaragdia souverbiana

Smaragdia souverbiana
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Mollusca
Class: Gastropoda
(unranked): clade Neritimorpha
clade Cycloneritimorpha
Superfamily: Neritoidea
Family: Neritidae
Genus: Smaragdia
Species: S. souverbiana
Binomial name
Smaragdia souverbiana
(Montrouzier, 1863)
Synonyms[1]
  • Neritina hellvillensis Crosse, 1881
  • Neritina pulcherrima Angas, 1871
  • Neritina souverbieana Montrouzier, 1863

Smaragdia souverbiana is a species of sea snail, a marine gastropod mollusk in the family Neritidae.[1]

Description

Smaragdia souverbiana is a small (<2mm aperture) seagrass associated Nerite. Its shell is sand to green in colour, with distinctive thin black bands with embedded clear diamonds across the whorls. It is commonly found in seagrasses, where it is believed to feed directly on seagrass cells (rather than algae epiphyte like many other seagrass associated gastropods).

Distribution

This species is distributed in the Indian Ocean along Madagascar and the Aldabra Atoll, and in the Mediterranean Sea. It is also widely distributed throughout the Indo-Pacific, with records of its collection along the east (as far south as southern New South Wales) and west coasts for Australia, through Indonesia and Malaysia to the Philippines and New Caledonia.[1]

References

External links