''Melarhaphe neritoides'', common name : the small periwinkle, 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

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 ...

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

Littorinidae The Littorinidae are a taxonomic family of over 200 species of sea snails, marine gastropod molluscs in the clade Littorinimorpha, commonly known as periwinkles and found worldwide. Names In English-speaking countries, gastropod molluscs from o ...

, the winkles or periwinkles. This species was previously known as ''Littorina neritoides''. ''Melarhaphe'' is a

monotypic In biology, a monotypic taxon is a taxonomic group (taxon) that contains only one immediately subordinate taxon. A monotypic species is one that does not include subspecies or smaller, infraspecific taxa. In the case of genera, the term "unispec ...

genus, in other words, this is the only species in that genus.

Description

This is a tiny species with the size of an adult shell varying between 4 mm and 9 mm. It has a high pointed

spire A spire is a tall, slender, pointed structure on top of a roof of a building or tower, especially at the summit of church steeples. A spire may have a square, circular, or polygonal plan, with a roughly conical or pyramidal shape. Spires are ...

. The dark

aperture In optics, an aperture is a hole or an opening through which light travels. More specifically, the aperture and focal length of an optical system determine the cone angle of a bundle of rays that come to a focus in the image plane. An opt ...

is oval. The purple-brown spiral band can be clearly seen on the

body whorl The body whorl is part of the morphology of the shell in those gastropod mollusks that possess a coiled shell. The term is also sometimes used in a similar way to describe the shell of a cephalopod mollusk. In gastropods In gastropods, the b ...

. The small periwinkle breeds in late winter. Its

pelagic The pelagic zone consists of the water column of the open ocean, and can be further divided into regions by depth (as illustrated on the right). The word ''pelagic'' is derived . The pelagic zone can be thought of as an imaginary cylinder or wa ...

egg capsules release

planktonic 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 ...

larvae.

Distribution

This species is found in European waters from

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe, the mainland territory of which comprises the western and northernmost portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and t ...

down south, in the Atlantic Ocean along the

Azores ) , motto =( en, "Rather die free than subjected in peace") , anthem= ( en, "Anthem of the Azores") , image_map=Locator_map_of_Azores_in_EU.svg , map_alt=Location of the Azores within the European Union , map_caption=Location of the Azores wi ...

Canary Islands The Canary Islands (; es, Canarias, ), also known informally as the Canaries, are a Spanish autonomous community and archipelago in the Atlantic Ocean, in Macaronesia. At their closest point to the African mainland, they are west of Morocc ...

Cape Verde , national_anthem = () , official_languages = Portuguese , national_languages = Cape Verdean Creole , capital = Praia , coordinates = , largest_city = capital , demonym ...

Morocco Morocco (),, ) officially the Kingdom of Morocco, is the westernmost country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It overlooks the Mediterranean Sea to the north and the Atlantic Ocean to the west, and has land borders with Algeria to ...

Mauritania Mauritania (; ar, موريتانيا, ', french: Mauritanie; Berber: ''Agawej'' or ''Cengit''; Pulaar: ''Moritani''; Wolof: ''Gànnaar''; Soninke:), officially the Islamic Republic of Mauritania ( ar, الجمهورية الإسلامية ...

; in the

Mediterranean Sea The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean Basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Western and Southern Europe and Anatolia, on the south by North Africa, and on the ea ...

and the

Black Sea The Black Sea is a marginal mediterranean sea of the Atlantic Ocean lying between Europe and Asia, east of the Balkans, south of the East European Plain, west of the Caucasus, and north of Anatolia. It is bounded by Bulgaria, Georgia, Roma ...

References

WoRMS info

* Backeljau, T. (1986). ''Lijst van de recente mariene mollusken van België ist of the recent marine molluscs of Belgium'. Koninklijk Belgisch Instituut voor Natuurwetenschappen: Brussels, Belgium. 106 pp * Reid, D.G. (1989) ''The comparative morphology, phylogeny and evolution of the gastropod family Littorinidae''. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, Series B 324: 1-110. * Britton J. C. (1995) "The relationship between position on shore and shell ornamentation in 2 size-dependent morphotypes of ''

Littorina striata ''Littorina'' is a genus of small sea snails, marine gastropod molluscs in the family Littorinidae, the winkles or periwinkles.WoRMS (2011). Littorina Férussac, 1822. Accessed through: World Register of Marine Species at http://www.marinespe ...

'', with an estimate of evaporative water-loss in these morphotypes and in ''Melarhaphe neritoides''". ''Hydrobiologia'' 309: 129-142
abstract
* Howson, C.M.; Picton, B.E. (Ed.) (1997). ''The species directory of the marine fauna and flora of the British Isles and surrounding seas''. Ulster Museum Publication, 276. The Ulster Museum: Belfast, UK. . vi, 508 * de Kluijver, M.J.; Ingalsuo, S.S.; de Bruyne, R.H. (2000). ''Macrobenthos of the North Sea'' D-ROM 1. Keys to Mollusca and Brachiopoda. World Biodiversity Database CD-ROM Series. Expert Center for Taxonomic Identification (ETI): Amsterdam, The Netherlands. . 1 cd-rom pp * Kantor Yu.I. & Sysoev A.V. (2006) ''Marine and brackish water Gastropoda of Russia and adjacent countries: an illustrated catalogue''. Moscow: KMK Scientific Press. 372 pp. + 140 pls. * Cabral-Oliveira J., Maranhão P. & Pardal M. Â. (June 2009) "The effect of sewage discharge on ''Melarhaphe neritoides'' (Gastropoda: Littorinidae) population dynamics". ''Scientia Marina'' 73(2): 259-267. * Reid D.G. (2011) ''The genus Echinolittorina Habe, 1956 (Gastropoda: Littorinidae) in the eastern Atlantic Ocean and Mediterranean Sea.'' Zootaxa 2974: 1–65. * Kadolsky D. (2012) ''Nomenclatural comments on non-marine molluscs occurring in the British Isles.'' Journal of Conchology 41(1): 65-90. * Fourdrilis S., Mardulyn P., Hardy O. J., Jordaens K., de Frias Martins A. M., Backeljau T. (2016) "Mitochondrial DNA hyperdiversity and its potential causes in the marine periwinkle ''Melarhaphe neritoides'' (Mollusca: Gastropoda)". ''PeerJ'' 4:e2549. Littorinidae Gastropods described in 1758 Taxa named by Carl Linnaeus Molluscs of the Atlantic Ocean Molluscs of the Mediterranean Sea Molluscs of the Azores Molluscs of the Canary Islands Gastropods of Cape Verde Fauna of the Black Sea Invertebrates of West Africa Invertebrates of North Africa {{Littorinidae-stub

Description

Distribution

References

Further reading