''Angaria delphinus'',

common name In biology, a common name of a taxon or organism (also known as a vernacular name, English name, colloquial name, country name, popular name, or farmer's name) is a name that is based on the normal language of everyday life; and is often con ...

the common delphinula, is a

species A species () is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate sexes or mating types can produce fertile offspring, typically by sexual reproduction. It is the basic unit of Taxonomy (biology), ...

sea snail Sea snails are slow-moving marine (ocean), marine gastropod Mollusca, molluscs, usually with visible external shells, such as whelk or abalone. They share the Taxonomic classification, taxonomic class Gastropoda with slugs, which are distinguishe ...

, a marine

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 ...

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

of the

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 ...

Angariidae ''Angaria'' is a genus of sea snails, marine (ocean), marine gastropod mollusks in the family (biology), family Angariidae. ''Angaria'' is the only genus in the family Angariidae. Taxonomy According to the Taxonomy of the Gastropoda (Bouchet ...

.WoRMS : Angaria delphinus
accessed : 22 August 2011

Description

The shell of this species is variable in degree of

sculpture Sculpture is the branch of the visual arts that operates in three dimensions. Sculpture is the three-dimensional art work which is physically presented in the dimensions of height, width and depth. It is one of the plastic arts. Durable sc ...

, depending on how exposed or sheltered the environment is in which the snail lives. These different forms are called

ecomorph Ecomorphology or ecological morphology is the study of the relationship between the ecological role of an individual and its morphological adaptations. The term "morphological" here is in the anatomical context. Both the morphology and ecology ex ...

s. The shells can reach 73 mm in size.

Distribution

This species is found in shallow intertidal waters, usually on rocky shorelines and in reef flats. It is native to the

Central Indo-Pacific The Central Indo-Pacific is a biogeographic region of Earth's seas, comprising the tropical waters of the western Pacific Ocean, the eastern Indian Ocean, and the connecting seas. The Central Indo-Pacific is a part of the larger Indo-Pacific, w ...

, from

Northern Australia The unofficial geographic term Northern Australia includes those parts of Queensland and Western Australia north of latitude 26th parallel south, 26° and all of the Northern Territory. Those local government areas of Western Australia and Q ...

and

New Caledonia New Caledonia ( ; ) is a group of islands in the southwest Pacific Ocean, southwest of Vanuatu and east of Australia. Located from Metropolitan France, it forms a Overseas France#Sui generis collectivity, ''sui generis'' collectivity of t ...

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

Southeast Asia Southeast Asia is the geographical United Nations geoscheme for Asia#South-eastern Asia, southeastern region of Asia, consisting of the regions that are situated south of China, east of the Indian subcontinent, and northwest of the Mainland Au ...

, and the

Andaman Sea The Andaman Sea (historically also known as the Burma Sea) is a marginal sea of the northeastern Indian Ocean bounded by the coastlines of Myanmar and Thailand along the Gulf of Martaban and the west side of the Malay Peninsula, and separated f ...

References

* Poppe G.T. & Goto Y. (1993) ''Recent Angariidae''. Ancona: Informatore Piceno. 32 pls, 10 pls * Dautzenberg, P. (1923). Liste preliminaire des mollusques marins de Madagascar et description de deux especes nouvelles. Journal de Conchyliologie 68: 21-74. * Dautzenberg, Ph. (1929). Mollusques testaces marins de Madagascar. Faune des Colonies Francaises, Tome III. * Monsecour K. & Monsecour D. (2006) The genus Angaria Röding, 1798 (Gastropoda: Turbinidae) in New Caledonia, with description of a new species. Visaya 1(6): 9-16.

External links

* http://eol.org/pages/10202293 Angariidae Gastropods described in 1758 Taxa named by Carl Linnaeus {{Angariidae-stub