''Cerithium litteratum'' is a

species In biology, a species is the basic unit of classification and a taxonomic rank of an organism, as well as a unit of biodiversity. A species is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate s ...

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 Mollusca is the second-largest phylum of invertebrate animals after the Arthropoda, the members of which are known as molluscs or mollusks (). Around 85,000 extant species of molluscs are recognized. The number of fossil species is e ...

in the

family Family (from la, familia) is a Social group, group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or Affinity (law), affinity (by marriage or other relationship). The purpose of the family is to maintain the well-being of its ...

Cerithiidae Cerithiidae, common name the cerithiids or ceriths, is a large family of medium-sized marine gastropods in the clade Sorbeoconcha. Distribution Ceriths are found worldwide on sandy bottoms, reef flats or coral reef rock covered with sand ...

Distribution

''Cerithium litteratum'' has been living in shallower waters and reefs of the Western Central Atlantic Ocean, from South Carolina to Florida including the Gulf of Mexico in North America over Central America (Belize) to South America (Brazil), and has been documented in the

Indian Ocean The Indian Ocean is the third-largest of the world's five oceanic divisions, covering or ~19.8% of the water on Earth's surface. It is bounded by Asia to the north, Africa to the west and Australia to the east. To the south it is bounded by th ...

. It prefers water temperatures and ecosystems associated with a

tropical climate Tropical climate is the first of the five major climate groups in the Köppen climate classification identified with the letter A. Tropical climates are defined by a monthly average temperature of 18 °C (64.4 °F) or higher in the cool ...

.''Cerithium litteratum''
sealifebase.org, accessed 9 January 2011. It was judged to be an 'occasional'

alien species An introduced species, alien species, exotic species, adventive species, immigrant species, foreign species, non-indigenous species, or non-native species is a species living outside its native distributional range, but which has arrived there ...

in the Mediterranean Sea, based on a 1978 find by fishers in the

Aegean Sea The Aegean Sea ; tr, Ege Denizi (Greek language, Greek: Αιγαίο Πέλαγος: "Egéo Pélagos", Turkish language, Turkish: "Ege Denizi" or "Adalar Denizi") is an elongated embayment of the Mediterranean Sea between Europe and Asia. It ...

Description

the maximum recorded

shell Shell may refer to: Architecture and design * Shell (structure), a thin structure ** Concrete shell, a thin shell of concrete, usually with no interior columns or exterior buttresses ** Thin-shell structure Science Biology * Seashell, a hard o ...

length has been 34 mm.

Habitat and ecology

the snail has been found between sea level and a maximum recorded depth of 88 m below sea level. which means it lives in the sunlight zone of the

pelagic The pelagic zone consists of the water column of the open ocean, and can be further divided into regions by depth (as illustrated on the right). The word ''pelagic'' is derived . The pelagic zone can be thought of as an imaginary cylinder or wa ...

. The snail is a

herbivore A herbivore is an animal anatomically and physiologically adapted to eating plant material, for example foliage or marine algae, for the main component of its diet. As a result of their plant diet, herbivorous animals typically have mouthpart ...

, feeding on algae for example. Small

hermit crab Hermit crabs are anomuran decapod crustaceans of the superfamily Paguroidea that have adapted to occupy empty scavenged mollusc shells to protect their fragile exoskeletons. There are over 800 species of hermit crab, most of which possess an a ...

s, mostly '' Calcinus tibicen'' but also '' Paguristes punticeps'' and ''

Paguristes cadenati ''Paguristes cadenati'', the red reef hermit crab or scarlet hermit crab, is a small (about across) species of hermit crab with a bright red body and yellow eyestalks that lives in the Caribbean Sea. The specific name honours the French ichthy ...

'' have long been known to move into its empty shells. Experimental evidence exists, that the snail helps to recruit

coral Corals are marine invertebrates within the class Anthozoa of the phylum Cnidaria. They typically form compact colonies of many identical individual polyps. Coral species include the important reef builders that inhabit tropical oceans and sec ...

s by removing algae on subsurfaces, which compete with the coral's settlement. Fish prey on the snail, and the Caribbean hogfish, '' Lachnolaimus maximus'' for example, can crush the mollusc with its jaw. Biomechanical research has found ''Cerithium'' predation to be limited by force, rather than by the gape of the jaw.

References

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Cerithium Litteratum Cerithiidae Gastropods described in 1778