''Amonovula piriei'' is a species of

sea snail Sea snail is a common name for slow-moving marine gastropod molluscs, usually with visible external shells, such as whelk or abalone. They share the taxonomic class Gastropoda with slugs, which are distinguished from snails primarily by the ...

, a marine

gastropod The gastropods (), commonly known as snails and slugs, belong to a large taxonomic class of invertebrates within the phylum Mollusca called Gastropoda (). This class comprises snails and slugs from saltwater, from freshwater, and from land. T ...

mollusk in the family Ovulidae, the ovulids, cowry allies or false cowries.MolluscaBase eds. (2022). MolluscaBase. Amonovula piriei (Petuch, 1973). Accessed through: World Register of Marine Species at: https://www.marinespecies.org/aphia.php?p=taxdetails&id=1379318 on 2022-02-11

Description

''Amonovula piriei'' has an elongated, compact shell, cylindrical in shape and up to in length. It is plain and shiny, and has a long slit on the underside through which the

mantle A mantle is a piece of clothing, a type of cloak. Several other meanings are derived from that. Mantle may refer to: *Mantle (clothing), a cloak-like garment worn mainly by women as fashionable outerwear **Mantle (vesture), an Eastern Orthodox ve ...

protrudes. When the snail is alive, the mantle almost completely covers the shell for most of the time. Two short tentacles and two tiny eyes are sometimes visible at the front when the animal is active and the only other part of the soft tissues which can be seen is the small part of the pale pink foot which trails behind when the animal moves. The mantle is white and translucent, with contrasting pustules, which mimic the polyps of the host gorgonian. The snail is a master of camouflage; it achieves this by feeding on the host's tissues and making use of the pigments so that it matches the colour of its host.

Distribution and habitat

''Amonovula piriei'' is native to the western Pacific Ocean, being present in the Solomon Islands, Papua New Guinea, New Caledonia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Indonesia. It exclusively lives on warm water

gorgonians Alcyonacea, or soft corals, are an order of corals. In addition to the fleshy soft corals, the order Alcyonacea now contains all species previously known as "gorgonian corals", that produce a more or less hard skeleton, though quite different f ...

in the genera ''

Euplexaura ''Euplexaura'' is a genus of cnidarians belonging to the family Plexauridae. The species of this genus are found in Pacific and Indian Ocean. Species Species: *''Euplexaura abietina'' *''Euplexaura albida'' *''Euplexaura amerea'' Referen ...

'' and ''

Echinogorgia ''Echinogorgia'' is a genus of corals belonging to the family Plexauridae Plexauridae is a family of marine colonial octocorals in the phylum Cnidaria. Members of this family are found in shallow tropical and subtropical seas. Many species cont ...

'', at depths between about .

Ecology

''Amonovula piriei'' feeds on the tissues and polyps of the gorgonians on which it lives, and can be considered an

ectoparasite Parasitism is a close relationship between species, where one organism, the parasite, lives on or inside another organism, the host, causing it some harm, and is adapted structurally to this way of life. The entomologist E. O. Wilson has ...

. The sexes are separate in this species; the female deposits a cluster of a few dozen egg capsules on the host, with several hundred embryos developing in each capsule. The larvae are planktonic and drift with the current, but will need to settle on a suitable gorgonian host in order to continue their development. This false cowrie is well camouflaged so that it is difficult to detect, but may be locally abundant; on the reefs of Poindimié in

New Caledonia ) , anthem = "" , image_map = New Caledonia on the globe (small islands magnified) (Polynesia centered).svg , map_alt = Location of New Caledonia , map_caption = Location of New Caledonia , mapsize = 290px , subdivision_type = Sovereign st ...

, for example, each gorgonian may host as many as a dozen of the molluscs.

References

* Fehse D. (2019). Contributions to the knowledge of the Ovulidae, XXVII. New generic assignment for Primovula piriei Petuch, 1973 (Mollusca: Gastropoda). Conchylia. 50(1-4): 33-38.

External links

Petuch E.J. (1973). A new species of Primovula from the western Solomon Sea (Gastropoda: Ovulidae). The Veliger. 16(1): 103-104.
Ovulidae Gastropods described in 1973 {{Ovulidae-stub