''Pterotrachea coronata'' is a
species of large floating
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
pelagic 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 Pterotracheidae.
This pelagic snail is not at all closely related to the pelagic opistobranchs such as the
sea angels and
sea butterflies. It is in the family Pterotracheidae, which is in the clade Littorinimorpha, and as such it is related to such families as the tritons (
Ranellidae) and the tun shells (
Tonnidae).
Description
The maximum recorded body length is 260 mm.
[Welch J. J. (2010). "The "Island Rule" and Deep-Sea Gastropods: Re-Examining the Evidence". '' PLoS ONE'' 5(1): e8776. .]
Habitat
Minimum recorded depth is 0 m.
Maximum recorded depth is 250 m.
References
Further reading
*
Powell A W B, ''New Zealand Mollusca'',
William Collins Publishers Ltd, Auckland, New Zealand 1979
External links
Tree of Life: Pterotrachea coronata
Pterotracheidae
Molluscs described in 1775
Taxa named by Peter Forsskål
{{Caenogastropoda-stub