''Paratectonatica tigrina'', common name tiger moon 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 ...

predatory 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 ...

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 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 ...

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 ...

Naticidae Naticidae, common name moon snails or necklace shells, is a family (biology), family of medium to large-sized predatory sea snails, marine (ocean), marine gastropod molluscs in the clade Littorinimorpha. The shells of the species in this family a ...

, the moon snails.MolluscaBase eds. (2021). MolluscaBase. Paratectonatica tigrina (Röding, 1798). Accessed through: World Register of Marine Species at: http://marinespecies.org/aphia.php?p=taxdetails&id=1432965 on 2021-09-14

Description

Size 28-30mm, with slightly elevated spires. Pale brown colour with faint brown or yellow trans-spiral lines. Commonly crawls on sandy bottom in meso littoral zone. Shells of ''Paratectonatica tigrina'' can reach a size of . These shells are pear-shaped and quite thick, with the tip of the spiral sticking out. They have a whitish or pale brown surface with small dark brown or black spots. Operculum is white and quite smooth, usually with yellow and gray patches. The foot of the mollusk is whitish, almost translucent, plain and large.Wild Singapore
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Distribution

This species occurs in the

Red Sea The Red Sea ( ar, البحر الأحمر - بحر القلزم, translit=Modern: al-Baḥr al-ʾAḥmar, Medieval: Baḥr al-Qulzum; or ; Coptic: ⲫⲓⲟⲙ ⲛ̀ϩⲁϩ ''Phiom Enhah'' or ⲫⲓⲟⲙ ⲛ̀ϣⲁⲣⲓ ''Phiom ǹšari''; T ...

and in the Indian Ocean off

Madagascar Madagascar (; mg, Madagasikara, ), officially the Republic of Madagascar ( mg, Repoblikan'i Madagasikara, links=no, ; french: République de Madagascar), is an island country in the Indian Ocean, approximately off the coast of East Africa ...

. They are also commonly found along the Southeast Indian coast and the Konkan coast up to Kerala. ''Paratectonatica tigrina'' can be found in the Eastern Africa, Southeastern Asia and Australia.GBIF
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Human uses

In some countries (mainly Indonesia and Japan) these sea snails are collected for food and the shells are traded.

Fossil records

This species is known in the fossil record from the

Oligocene The Oligocene ( ) is a geologic epoch of the Paleogene Period and extends from about 33.9 million to 23 million years before the present ( to ). As with other older geologic periods, the rock beds that define the epoch are well identified but the ...

epoch to the

Quaternary The Quaternary ( ) is the current and most recent of the three periods of the Cenozoic Era in the geologic time scale of the International Commission on Stratigraphy (ICS). It follows the Neogene Period and spans from 2.58 million years ...

period (age range 23.03 to 0.0 million years ago.). Fossils have been collected in the sediments of Austria, Germany, India, Italy and Thailand. Fossilworks
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References

* Dautzenberg, Ph. (1929). ''Mollusques testacés marins de Madagascar.'' Faune des Colonies Francaises, Tome III * Proud, A. J. (1977). ''An ecological survey of the D' Aguilar Peninsula, Hong Kong, with recommendations for its future management.'' Mphil thesis. The University of Hong Kong. * Torigoe K. & Inaba A. (2011). Revision on the classification of Recent Naticidae. Bulletin of the Nishinomiya Shell Museum. 7: 133 + 15 pp., 4 pls

External links

Röding, P.F. (1798). Museum Boltenianum sive Catalogus cimeliorum e tribus regnis naturæ quæ olim collegerat Joa. Fried Bolten, M. D. p. d. per XL. annos proto physicus Hamburgensis. Pars secunda continens Conchylia sive Testacea univalvia, bivalvia & multivalvia. Trapp, Hamburg. viii, 199 pp

[J.-B. M.
de. (1822). Histoire naturelle des animaux sans vertèbres. Tome sixième, 2me partie. Paris: published by the Author, 232 pp">.-B. M.">[J.-B. M.
de. (1822). Histoire naturelle des animaux sans vertèbres. Tome sixième, 2me partie. Paris: published by the Author, 232 pp
Perry, G. (1811). Conchology, or the natural history of shells: containing a new arrangement of the genera and species, illustrated by coloured engravings executed from the natural specimens, and including the latest discoveries. 4 pp., 61 plates. London

Deshayes, G. P. & Milne-Edwards, H. (1838). Histoire naturelle des animaux sans vertèbres, présentant les caractères généraux et particuliers de ces animaux, leur distribution, leurs classes, leurs familles, leurs genres, et la citation des principales espèces qui s'y rapportent, par J.B.P.A. de Lamarck. Deuxième édition, Tome huitième. Histoire des Mollusques. J. B. Baillière: Paris. 660 pp

Kang, D.-R.; Tan, K. S.; Liu, L.-L. (2018). Egg-collar morphology and identity of nine species of Naticidae (Gastropoda) in Taiwan, with an assessment of their phylogenetic relationships. Journal of Molluscan Studies. 84: 354–378

Animal Base
Naticidae Gastropods described in 1798 {{Naticidae-stub