''Lotoria lotoria'', common name the black-spotted snail or washing bath triton, is a species of
predatory 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 tropical
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
* ...
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 ...
mollusc
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 esti ...
in the
family Cymatiidae
Cymatiidae is a family of large sea snails in the superfamily Tonnoidea and the order Littorinimorpha. Members of this family are predators.
Genera
The family Cymatiidae contains the following genera:
* '' Argobuccinum'' Herrmannsen, 1846
* '' ...
. This species was previously known as ''Cymatium lotorium''.
Fossil records
Fossils from this family date back to the
Eocene (age range: from 55.8 to 0.012 million years ago).
Description
Shells of ''Lotoria lotoria'' can reach a size of .
Distribution
This species of marine snail lives in the tropical
Indo-Pacific
The Indo-Pacific is a vast biogeographic region of Earth.
In a narrow sense, sometimes known as the Indo-West Pacific or Indo-Pacific Asia, it comprises the tropical waters of the Indian Ocean, the western and central Pacific Ocean, and the ...
oceans.
[Discover life]
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Habitat
''Lotoria lotoria'' is quite common in coral reefs in Australia and the Indian Ocean.
References
Linnaeus, C. (1758). Systema Naturae per regna tria naturae, secundum classes, ordines, genera, species, cum characteribus, differentiis, synonymis, locis. Editio decima, reformata. Laurentius Salvius: Holmiae. ii, 824 pp
* Drivas, J.; Jay, M. (1987). ''Coquillages de La Réunion et de l'Île Maurice''. Collection Les Beautés de la Nature. Delachaux et Niestlé: Neuchâtel. . 159 pp
* Liu J.Y. uiyu(ed.). (2008). ''Checklist of marine biota of China seas''. China Science Press. 1267 pp
External links
Conchology
Emerson W.K. & Old W.E. (1963). A new subgenus and species of Cymatium (Mollusca, Gastropoda). ''American Museum Novitates''. 2137: 1–13
Cymatiidae
Gastropods described in 1758
Taxa named by Carl Linnaeus
{{Cymatiidae-stub