''Melarhaphe neritoides'', common name : the small periwinkle, 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), ...
of small
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 ...
in the family
Littorinidae, the winkles or periwinkles.
This species was previously known as ''Littorina neritoides''.
''Melarhaphe'' is a
monotypic
In biology, a monotypic taxon is a taxonomic group (taxon) that contains only one immediately subordinate taxon. A monotypic species is one that does not include subspecies or smaller, infraspecific taxa. In the case of genera, the term "unisp ...
genus, in other words, this is the only species in that genus.
Description and habitat
This is a tiny species with the size of an adult shell varying between 4 mm and 9 mm. It has a high pointed
spire. The dark
aperture is oval. The purple-brown spiral band can be clearly seen on the
body whorl.
The small periwinkle breeds in late winter. Its
pelagic
The pelagic zone consists of the water column of the open ocean and can be further divided into regions by depth. The word ''pelagic'' is derived . The pelagic zone can be thought of as an imaginary cylinder or water column between the sur ...
egg capsules release
planktonic
Plankton are the diverse collection of organisms that drift in water (or air) but are unable to actively propel themselves against currents (or wind). The individual organisms constituting plankton are called plankters. In the ocean, they pro ...
larvae.
This small gastropod lives in the upper levels of natural or artificial rocky shores, up to the limit of the highest tides, where it can be abundant and is often the only marine gastropod. It feeds on detritus and on black lichen of the genus ''
Lichina''
''.''
Distribution
This species is found in European waters from
Norway
Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and the archipelago of Svalbard also form part of the Kingdom of ...
down south, in the Atlantic Ocean along the
Azores
The Azores ( , , ; , ), officially the Autonomous Region of the Azores (), is one of the two autonomous regions of Portugal (along with Madeira). It is an archipelago composed of nine volcanic islands in the Macaronesia region of the North Atl ...
,
Canary Islands
The Canary Islands (; ) or Canaries are an archipelago in the Atlantic Ocean and the southernmost Autonomous communities of Spain, Autonomous Community of Spain. They are located in the northwest of Africa, with the closest point to the cont ...
,
Cape Verde
Cape Verde or Cabo Verde, officially the Republic of Cabo Verde, is an island country and archipelagic state of West Africa in the central Atlantic Ocean, consisting of ten volcanic islands with a combined land area of about . These islands ...
,
Morocco
Morocco, officially the Kingdom of Morocco, is a country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It has coastlines on the Mediterranean Sea to the north and the Atlantic Ocean to the west, and has land borders with Algeria to Algeria–Morocc ...
,
Mauritania
Mauritania, officially the Islamic Republic of Mauritania, is a sovereign country in Maghreb, Northwest Africa. It is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the west, Western Sahara to Mauritania–Western Sahara border, the north and northwest, ...
; in the
Mediterranean Sea
The Mediterranean Sea ( ) is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the east by the Levant in West Asia, on the north by Anatolia in West Asia and Southern Eur ...
and the
Black Sea
The Black Sea is a marginal sea, marginal Mediterranean sea (oceanography), mediterranean sea lying between Europe and Asia, east of the Balkans, south of the East European Plain, west of the Caucasus, and north of Anatolia. It is bound ...
.
References
WoRMS info
Further reading
* Backeljau, T. (1986). ''Lijst van de recente mariene mollusken van België
ist of the recent marine molluscs of Belgium'. Koninklijk Belgisch Instituut voor Natuurwetenschappen: Brussels, Belgium. 106 pp
* Reid, D.G. (1989) ''The comparative morphology, phylogeny and evolution of the gastropod family Littorinidae''. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, Series B 324: 1-110.
* Britton J. C. (1995) "The relationship between position on shore and shell ornamentation in 2 size-dependent morphotypes of ''
Littorina striata'', with an estimate of evaporative water-loss in these morphotypes and in ''Melarhaphe neritoides''". ''Hydrobiologia'' 309: 129-142
abstract
* Howson, C.M.; Picton, B.E. (Ed.) (1997). ''The species directory of the marine fauna and flora of the British Isles and surrounding seas''. Ulster Museum Publication, 276. The Ulster Museum: Belfast, UK. . vi, 508
* de Kluijver, M.J.; Ingalsuo, S.S.; de Bruyne, R.H. (2000). ''Macrobenthos of the North Sea''
D-ROM 1. Keys to Mollusca and Brachiopoda. World Biodiversity Database CD-ROM Series. Expert Center for Taxonomic Identification (ETI): Amsterdam, the Netherlands. . 1 cd-rom pp
* Kantor Yu.I. & Sysoev A.V. (2006) ''Marine and brackish water Gastropoda of Russia and adjacent countries: an illustrated catalogue''. Moscow: KMK Scientific Press. 372 pp. + 140 pls.
* Cabral-Oliveira J., Maranhão P. & Pardal M. Â. (June 2009) "The effect of sewage discharge on ''Melarhaphe neritoides'' (Gastropoda: Littorinidae) population dynamics". ''Scientia Marina'' 73(2): 259-267.
* Reid D.G. (2011) ''The genus Echinolittorina Habe, 1956 (Gastropoda: Littorinidae) in the eastern Atlantic Ocean and Mediterranean Sea.'' Zootaxa 2974: 1–65.
* Kadolsky D. (2012) ''Nomenclatural comments on non-marine molluscs occurring in the British Isles.'' Journal of Conchology 41(1): 65-90.
* Fourdrilis S., Mardulyn P., Hardy O. J., Jordaens K., de Frias Martins A. M., Backeljau T. (2016) "Mitochondrial DNA hyperdiversity and its potential causes in the marine periwinkle ''Melarhaphe neritoides'' (Mollusca: Gastropoda)". ''PeerJ'' 4:e2549.
Littorinidae
Gastropods described in 1758
Taxa named by Carl Linnaeus
Molluscs of the Atlantic Ocean
Molluscs of the Mediterranean Sea
Molluscs of the Azores
Molluscs of the Canary Islands
Gastropods of Cape Verde
Fauna of the Black Sea
Invertebrates of West Africa
Invertebrates of North Africa
{{Littorinidae-stub