''Turbo bruneus'', common name the brown (Pacific) dwarf turban or the little burnt turbo, 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 ...

, 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 ...

Turbinidae Turbinidae, the turban snails, are a family of small to large marine gastropod molluscs in the superfamily Trochoidea.Bouchet, P. (2014). Turbinidae Rafinesque, 1815. Accessed through: World Register of Marine Species at http://www.marinespecie ...

.These snails are called "turbo" because they can move quite quickly for a snail, using a muscular foot to glide along the ocean floor. They feed on algae and other small organisms that they scrape off rocks and other surfaces. Turbo bruneus snails are important members of their

ecosystem An ecosystem (or ecological system) consists of all the organisms and the physical environment with which they interact. These biotic and abiotic components are linked together through nutrient cycles and energy flows. Energy enters the syste ...

because they help to control the population of algae and other small

organisms In biology, an organism () is any living system that functions as an individual entity. All organisms are composed of cells (cell theory). Organisms are classified by taxonomy into groups such as multicellular animals, plants, and fungi; ...

, which can become overgrown and harm other marine life if left unchecked.

Description

The length of the shell varies between 20 mm and 50 mm. The size of the Turbo bruneus shells are basically about 5-6 centimeters in diameter and have a rounded, conical shape with a pointed vertex. The color of the shell is

brown Brown is a color. It can be considered a composite color, but it is mainly a darker shade of orange. In the CMYK color model used in printing or painting, brown is usually made by combining the colors orange and black. In the RGB color model used ...

, with a

glossy Gloss is an optical property which indicates how well a surface reflects light in a specular (mirror-like) direction. It is one of the important parameters that are used to describe the visual appearance of an object. The factors that affect glos ...

, polished appearance. These

snails A snail is, in loose terms, a shelled gastropod. The name is most often applied to land snails, terrestrial pulmonate gastropod molluscs. However, the common name ''snail'' is also used for most of the members of the molluscan class Gastrop ...

are found in a wide range of

habitats In ecology, the term habitat summarises the array of resources, physical and biotic factors that are present in an area, such as to support the survival and reproduction of a particular species. A species habitat can be seen as the physical ...

, including

coral reefs A coral reef is an underwater ecosystem characterized by reef-building corals. Reefs are formed of Colony (biology), colonies of coral polyp (zoology), polyps held together by calcium carbonate. Most coral reefs are built from stony corals, wh ...

, rocky shorelines and

seagrass Seagrasses are the only flowering plants which grow in marine environments. There are about 60 species of fully marine seagrasses which belong to four families (Posidoniaceae, Zosteraceae, Hydrocharitaceae and Cymodoceaceae), all in the orde ...

beds. They can be found at depths of up to 30 meters but are more commonly found in

shallow waters Shallow water may refer to: * ''Shallow Water'' (album) * Shallow Water, Kansas, unincorporated community, United States * Waves and shallow water ** Shallow water equations The shallow-water equations (SWE) are a set of hyperbolic partial dif ...

around 5 -10 meters deep. Turbo bruneus snails are firstly

herbivores 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 a variety of

seaweed Seaweed, or macroalgae, refers to thousands of species of macroscopic, multicellular, marine algae. The term includes some types of '' Rhodophyta'' (red), ''Phaeophyta'' (brown) and ''Chlorophyta'' (green) macroalgae. Seaweed species such as ...

and other small organisms that they scrape off surfaces using a specialized feeding structure called a

radula The radula (, ; plural radulae or radulas) is an anatomical structure used by molluscs for feeding, sometimes compared to a tongue. It is a minutely toothed, chitinous ribbon, which is typically used for scraping or cutting food before the food ...

. They are also known to consume small

crustaceans Crustaceans (Crustacea, ) form a large, diverse arthropod taxon which includes such animals as decapods, seed shrimp, branchiopods, fish lice, krill, remipedes, isopods, barnacles, copepods, amphipods and mantis shrimp. The crustacean group ...

and other

invertebrates Invertebrates are a paraphyletic group of animals that neither possess nor develop a vertebral column (commonly known as a ''backbone'' or ''spine''), derived from the notochord. This is a grouping including all animals apart from the chordate ...

when food is in short supply. Turbo bruneus snails have an interesting reproduction process. They are

dioecious Dioecy (; ; adj. dioecious , ) is a characteristic of a species, meaning that it has distinct individual organisms (unisexual) that produce male or female gametes, either directly (in animals) or indirectly (in seed plants). Dioecious reproductio ...

, meaning that each individual snail is either male or female. During

mating In biology, mating is the pairing of either opposite-sex or hermaphroditic organisms for the purposes of sexual reproduction. ''Fertilization'' is the fusion of two gametes. ''Copulation'' is the union of the sex organs of two sexually reproduc ...

season, male snails release their

sperm Sperm is the male reproductive cell, or gamete, in anisogamous forms of sexual reproduction (forms in which there is a larger, female reproductive cell and a smaller, male one). Animals produce motile sperm with a tail known as a flagellum, whi ...

into the water, which is then carried by currents to nearby females. After

fertilization Fertilisation or fertilization (see spelling differences), also known as generative fertilisation, syngamy and impregnation, is the fusion of gametes to give rise to a new individual organism or offspring and initiate its development. Proce ...

, the female snail lays hundreds of small eggs, which are enclosed in a

jelly-like Gelatin or gelatine (from la, gelatus meaning "stiff" or "frozen") is a translucent, colorless, flavorless food ingredient, commonly derived from collagen taken from animal body parts. It is brittle when dry and rubbery when moist. It may also ...

substance and attached to rocks or other hard surfaces. The eggs hatch into free-swimming larvae, which eventually settle on the

ocean The ocean (also the sea or the world ocean) is the body of salt water that covers approximately 70.8% of the surface of Earth and contains 97% of Earth's water. An ocean can also refer to any of the large bodies of water into which the wo ...

floor and grow into adult snails. One of the interesting feature of Turbo bruneus snails is their operculum. This is a small, round,

calcareous Calcareous () is an adjective meaning "mostly or partly composed of calcium carbonate", in other words, containing lime or being chalky. The term is used in a wide variety of scientific disciplines. In zoology ''Calcareous'' is used as an adje ...

plate that covers the opening of their shell when they retract their body inside. The operculum is important for protecting the snail from

predators 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 the ...

and maintaining

moisture Moisture is the presence of a liquid, especially water, often in trace amounts. Small amounts of water may be found, for example, in the air (humidity), in foods, and in some commercial products. Moisture also refers to the amount of water vapo ...

inside the shell. Another unique feature of these snails is their ability to

survive Survival, or the act of surviving, is the propensity of something to continue existing, particularly when this is done despite conditions that might kill or destroy it. The concept can be applied to humans and other living things (or, hypotheti ...

out of water for short periods of time. When the

tide Tides are the rise and fall of sea levels caused by the combined effects of the gravity, gravitational forces exerted by the Moon (and to a much lesser extent, the Sun) and are also caused by the Earth and Moon orbiting one another. Tide t ...

goes out, Turbo bruneus snails can close their operculum and seal themselves inside their shell to prevent drying out. This

adaptation In biology, adaptation has three related meanings. Firstly, it is the dynamic evolutionary process of natural selection that fits organisms to their environment, enhancing their evolutionary fitness. Secondly, it is a state reached by the po ...

allows them to survive in

intertidal zones The intertidal zone, also known as the foreshore, is the area above water level at low tide and underwater at high tide (in other words, the area within the tidal range). This area can include several types of habitats with various species of ...

where they may be exposed to air for extended periods. In addition to their

ecological Ecology () is the study of the relationships between living organisms, including humans, and their physical environment. Ecology considers organisms at the individual, population, community, ecosystem, and biosphere level. Ecology overlaps wi ...

importance, Turbo bruneus snails are also of

economic An economy is an area of the Production (economics), production, Distribution (economics), distribution and trade, as well as Consumption (economics), consumption of Goods (economics), goods and Service (economics), services. In general, it is ...

importance to some coastal communities, as their shells are often used in traditional

crafts A craft or trade is a pastime or an occupation that requires particular skills and knowledge of skilled work. In a historical sense, particularly the Middle Ages and earlier, the term is usually applied to people occupied in small scale prod ...

and

jewelry Jewellery ( UK) or jewelry (U.S.) consists of decorative items worn for personal adornment, such as brooches, rings, necklaces, earrings, pendants, bracelets, and cufflinks. Jewellery may be attached to the body or the clothes. From a western ...

making.

Distribution

This marine 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 ...

, in the Central Indo-Pacific, in the Western Pacific Ocean, off

East India East India is a region of India consisting of the Indian states of Bihar, Jharkhand, Odisha and West Bengal and also the union territory of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. The region roughly corresponds to the historical region of Magadh ...

, the

Philippines The Philippines (; fil, Pilipinas, links=no), officially the Republic of the Philippines ( fil, Republika ng Pilipinas, links=no), * bik, Republika kan Filipinas * ceb, Republika sa Pilipinas * cbk, República de Filipinas * hil, Republ ...

and off

Western Australia Western Australia (commonly abbreviated as WA) is a state of Australia occupying the western percent of the land area of Australia excluding external territories. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Southern Ocean to th ...

References

* Röding, P.F. 1798. ''Museum Boltenianum sive Catalogus cimeliorum e tribus regnis naturae quae olim collegerat'' Joa. Hamburg : Trappii 199 pp * Rajagopal, A.S. & Mookherjee, H.P. 1978. ''Contributions to the molluscan fauna of India. Pt. I. Marine molluscs of the Coromandel Coast, Palk Strait and Gulf of Mannar - Gastropoda: Archaeogastropoda''. Records of the Zoological Survey of India 12: 1–48 * Wilson, B. 1993. ''Australian Marine Shells. Prosobranch Gastropods''. Kallaroo, Western Australia : Odyssey Publishing Vol. 1 408 pp. * Subba Rao, N.V. & Dey, A. 2000. ''Catalogue of marine molluscs of Andaman and Nicobar Islands''. Records of the Zoological Survey of India, Occasional Paper 187: x, 323 pp * Alf A. & Kreipl K. (2003). ''A Conchological Iconography: The Family Turbinidae, Subfamily Turbininae, Genus Tur''bo. Conchbooks, Hackenheim Germany. bruneus Gastropods described in 1791">Turbo (gastropod)">bruneus Gastropods described in 1791 {{Turbinidae-stub