''Aplustrum amplustre'', also known as royal paper bubble, ship’s flag shell, swollen bubble, 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 ...
s, bubble snails,
marine
Marine is an adjective meaning of or pertaining to the sea or ocean.
Marine or marines may refer to:
Ocean
* Maritime (disambiguation)
* Marine art
* Marine biology
* Marine debris
* Marine habitats
* Marine life
* Marine pollution
Military
* ...
opisthobranch
Opisthobranchs () is now an 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.
Euopisth ...
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 ...
mollusks in the family
Aplustridae.
Description
With length of shell around 15–40 mm, its shell is smaller and more heavily calcified shell than the other members of same species. shell with horizontal lines, with lightbrown stripes, outlined in black, alternating with translucent white and pink stripes patterns; the animal is too large to fit inside its shell. The species is active at night. Predator feeding on
polychaete worms. Empty shells are used by hermit crabs.
Distribution
The species is distributed in warm sea around tropical Indo-Pacific, Australia, New Zealand, South of Kyūshū of Japan, South Africa to Hawaii, Madagascar.
Habitat
It lives in shallow water (10 metres below sea level) on reefs, with a mix of fine sand, rock and turf algae.
References
External links
*
*
Sea Slug Forum infoInfo on the genus*
Aplustridae
Gastropods described in 1758
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