''Melampus coffea'', commonly known as the coffee bean snail, 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 ...

of small air-breathing

salt marsh A salt marsh or saltmarsh, also known as a coastal salt marsh or a tidal marsh, is a coastal ecosystem in the upper coastal intertidal zone between land and open saltwater or brackish water that is regularly flooded by the tides. It is domin ...

snail, a pulmonate gastropod

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

Ellobiidae Ellobiidae, common name the hollow-shelled snails, is a family of small air-breathing land snails, terrestrial pulmonate gastropod mollusks in the clade Eupulmonata.Bouchet, P. (2012). Ellobiidae. Accessed through: World Register of Marine Spe ...

.Rosenberg, G. (2014). Melampus coffea (Linnaeus, 1758). Accessed through: World Register of Marine Species at http://www.marinespecies.org/aphia.php?p=taxdetails&id=420640 on 2015-02-24

Distribution

The coffee bean snail is found on both coasts of

Florida Florida is a state located in the Southeastern region of the United States. Florida is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the northwest by Alabama, to the north by Georgia, to the east by the Bahamas and Atlantic Ocean, and to ...

and throughout the Caribbean.

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 is 23 mm.Welch J. J. (2010). "The "Island Rule" and Deep-Sea Gastropods: Re-Examining the Evidence". '' PLoS ONE'' 5(1): e8776. .

Ecology

Minimum recorded depth is -0.3 m. Maximum recorded depth is 0.3 m. This small snail is commonly found in the intertidal zone of

mangrove A mangrove is a shrub or tree that grows in coastal saline or brackish water. The term is also used for tropical coastal vegetation consisting of such species. Mangroves are taxonomically diverse, as a result of convergent evolution in severa ...

s amongst the roots and branches. It is similar in appearance to '' Melampus bidentatus'' and the two are often confused. ''Melampus bidentatus'' is slightly larger and is more likely to be found in a

as opposed to mangrove habitat for ''Melampus coffea''. Like other species of ''Melampus'', the coffee bean snail is one of the few pulmonate snails to reproduce via planktonic larvae called

veliger A veliger is the planktonic larva of many kinds of sea snails and freshwater snails, as well as most bivalve molluscs (clams) and tusk shells. Description The veliger is the characteristic larva of the gastropod, bivalve and scaphopod ...

s (Ruppert & Barnes 1994). Upon hatching, the veligers will spend between 4–6 weeks in the

plankton Plankton are the diverse collection of organisms found in water (or air) that are unable to propel themselves against a current (or wind). The individual organisms constituting plankton are called plankters. In the ocean, they provide a crucia ...

, and then return to the mangroves on a high tide, and

metamorphose Metamorphosis is a biological process by which an animal physically develops including birth or hatching, involving a conspicuous and relatively abrupt change in the animal's body structure through cell growth and differentiation. Some insec ...

into juvenile snails. This species is a detritivore and herbivore, foraging upon fresh and decaying mangrove leaf litter. The coffee bean snail engages in vertical migration leading up to the time of high tide, in order to escape

inundation A flood is an overflow of water ( or rarely other fluids) that submerges land that is usually dry. In the sense of "flowing water", the word may also be applied to the inflow of the tide. Floods are an area of study of the discipline hydrolog ...

and the increased risk of

predation Predation is a biological interaction where one organism, the predator, kills and eats another organism, its prey. It is one of a family of common feeding behaviours that includes parasitism and micropredation (which usually do not kill th ...

by various fish species.McKee K. L. & Faulkner P.. (2000). "Restoration of biogeochemical function in mangrove forests". '' Restor. Ecol.'' 8: 247-259.

References

* Rosenberg, G., F. Moretzsohn, and E. F. García. 2009. ''Gastropoda (Mollusca) of the Gulf of Mexico'', Pp. 579–699 in Felder, D.L. and D.K. Camp (eds.), Gulf of Mexico–Origins, Waters, and Biota. Biodiversity. Texas A&M Press, College Station, Texas

External links

Malacolog info, spelling ''Melampus coffea''
{{Taxonbar, from=Q6811150 Ellobiidae Gastropods described in 1758 Taxa named by Carl Linnaeus