Haminoeidae, commonly known as the haminoeid bubble snail family, is a

taxonomic 280px, Generalized scheme of taxonomy Taxonomy is a practice and science concerned with classification or categorization. Typically, there are two parts to it: the development of an underlying scheme of classes (a taxonomy) and the allocation ...

family Family (from ) is a Social group, group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or Affinity (law), affinity (by marriage or other relationship). It forms the basis for social order. Ideally, families offer predictabili ...

of sea snails, marine

opisthobranch Opisthobranchs () is a now informal name for a large and diverse group of specialized complex gastropods which used to be united in the subclass Opisthobranchia. That taxon is no longer considered to represent a monophyletic grouping. Euopistho ...

gastropod Gastropods (), commonly known as slugs and snails, belong to a large Taxonomy (biology), taxonomic class of invertebrates within the phylum Mollusca called Gastropoda (). This class comprises snails and slugs from saltwater, freshwater, and fro ...

mollusk Mollusca is a phylum of protostomic invertebrate animals, whose members are known as molluscs or mollusks (). Around 76,000 extant species of molluscs are recognized, making it the second-largest animal phylum after Arthropoda. The ...

s in the superfamily

Haminoeoidea Haminoeoidea is a Taxonomy (biology), taxonomic Taxonomic rank, superfamily of small sea snails or bubble shells, marine (ocean), marine opisthobranch gastropod mollusks in the clade Cephalaspidea, the headshield slugs and bubble snails. These c ...

. The name of this family has long been controversial, and used to be Atyidae or Atydidae. Another, but incorrect, spelling was Haminaeidae (See (ICZN) 2000. Opinion 1942). A number of genera have been proposed for this family, but the species are hard to identify (or sometimes impossible to identify) by looking only at the external characteristics. Until the internal

anatomy Anatomy () is the branch of morphology concerned with the study of the internal structure of organisms and their parts. Anatomy is a branch of natural science that deals with the structural organization of living things. It is an old scien ...

of 'wet' specimens has been fully described, the status of many of the genera listed here is uncertain.

Distribution

These bubble snails occur in all warm or temperate seas.

Habitat

These are sand dwellers or they live on muddy bottoms, in bays, estuaries, and close to the shore in tidepools.

Description of the live animal

These are colorful snails, that can partially take the color of the sea floor. Their large cephalic shield is rounded at the front, but deeply lobed behind. The mantle protrudes behind the shell. The shell is partially or completely enfolded by lateral parapodial (=fleshy winglike outgrowths) lobes.

Shell description

Their

shell Shell may refer to: Architecture and design * Shell (structure), a thin structure ** Concrete shell, a thin shell of concrete, usually with no interior columns or exterior buttresses Science Biology * Seashell, a hard outer layer of a marine ani ...

varies in size according to the species, from 3 mm to 30 mm. The shell is ovoid, thin and translucent. It may be smooth or have spiral grooves (striae). The umbilical

apex The apex is the highest point of something. The word may also refer to: Arts and media Fictional entities * Apex (comics) A-Bomb Abomination Absorbing Man Abraxas Abyss Abyss is the name of two characters appearing in Ameri ...

is sunken or enclosed and no longer visible. Large

body whorl The body whorl is part of the morphology (biology), morphology of the gastropod shell, shell in those gastropod mollusks that possess a coiled shell. The term is also sometimes used in a similar way to describe the shell of a cephalopod mollusk ...

with fine spiral striations. Smooth columella. The thin outer lip of the

aperture In optics, the aperture of an optical system (including a system consisting of a single lens) is the hole or opening that primarily limits light propagated through the system. More specifically, the entrance pupil as the front side image o ...

extends beyond the

of the shell and is thus longer than the body whorl. The aperture narrows posteriorly and is wider anteriorly.

Ecology

These snails are

herbivorous A herbivore is an animal anatomically and physiologically evolved to feed on plants, especially upon vascular tissues such as foliage, fruits or seeds, as the main component of its diet. These more broadly also encompass animals that eat n ...

. Their diet consists of various kinds of

green alga The green algae (: green alga) are a group of chlorophyll-containing autotrophic eukaryotes consisting of the phylum Prasinodermophyta and its unnamed sister group that contains the Chlorophyta and Charophyta/ Streptophyta. The land plants ( ...

e. They can survive in brackish water. They are

hermaphrodites A hermaphrodite () is a sexually reproducing organism that produces both male and female gametes. Animal species in which individuals are either male or female are gonochoric, which is the opposite of hermaphroditic. The individuals of many ...

. Their

egg An egg is an organic vessel grown by an animal to carry a possibly fertilized egg cell (a zygote) and to incubate from it an embryo within the egg until the embryo has become an animal fetus that can survive on its own, at which point the ...

s are deposited in round or oval jellylike strings, attached to

eelgrass Eelgrass is a common name for several plants and may refer to: * '' Zostera'', marine eelgrass * '' Vallisneria'', freshwater eelgrass See also *'' Potamogeton compressus'', known as eel-grass pondweed {{Short pages monitor