''Puncturella exquisita'' 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 ...

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 ...

in 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 ...

Fissurellidae Fissurellidae, common name the keyhole limpets and slit limpets, is a taxonomic family of small to medium-sized limpet-like sea snails, marine gastropod molluscs in the clade Vetigastropoda.Rosenberg, G. (2012). Fissurellidae. Accessed throu ...

, the keyhole limpets.MolluscaBase eds. (2022). MolluscaBase. Puncturella exquisita (A. Adams, 1853). Accessed through: World Register of Marine Species at: https://www.marinespecies.org/aphia.php?p=taxdetails&id=1445642 on 2022-04-14

Description

The size of the shell varies between 5 mm and 12 mm.

Distribution

This species occurs in the

Red Sea The Red Sea is a sea inlet of the Indian Ocean, lying between Africa and Asia. Its connection to the ocean is in the south, through the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait and the Gulf of Aden. To its north lie the Sinai Peninsula, the Gulf of Aqaba, and th ...

and the

Indian Ocean The Indian Ocean is the third-largest of the world's five oceanic divisions, covering or approximately 20% of the water area of Earth#Surface, Earth's surface. It is bounded by Asia to the north, Africa to the west and Australia (continent), ...

; also off the Philippines.

References

* Taylor, J.D. (1973). ''Provisional list of the mollusca of Aldabra Atoll'' * Poppe G.T. & Tagaro S.P. (2020). The Fissurellidae from the Philippines with the description of 26 new species. Visaya. suppl. 13: 1-131

External links

Adams, A. (1853). A monograph of the recent species of Rimula, a genus of Mollusca, belonging to the family Fissurellidae. Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London. (1851) 19: 226-227
Fissurellidae Gastropods described in 1851 {{Fissurellidae-stub