Aquarium mystery from South Australia

January 13, 2010
From: Andrea Madeley

Are you able to help me identify this chap?

I have had one in my marine aquarium now for several months. Spends most of the time buried in substrate but every few weeks it surfaces and seems to bask upside down with the big fleshy foot completely expanded, for a day or so and then flips over and goes back into the sand.

It was collected (by mistake) at Goolwa Beach in South Australia when collecting cockles and from what I can gather, these slugs / snails are quite common on this beach.

Locality: Goolwa Beach, on the shoreline, South Australia, 10th December 2009, intertidal. Length: shell 20mm - expanded foot 40 mm. Photographer: Andrea Madeley.

Andrea Madeley

amadeley@activ8.net.au

Madeley, A., 2010 (Jan 13) Aquarium mystery from South Australia. [Message in] Sea Slug Forum. Australian Museum, Sydney. Available from http://www.seaslugforum.net/find/23093

Dear Andrea,

I am pretty sure this is a marine snail which has evolved a somewhat flattened shell which is partially covered by flaps of the body/foot. Quite a few families of snails have burrowing species with similar adaptations. Yours is most likely belongs to the family Naticidae and could possibly be a species of Sinum, but without a good look at the body abnd the shell it is hard to be sure.

Because these animals can be mistaken for slugs, I have a Fact Sheet on the Forum which will give you some background information - and hopefully some clues on where to look for more information. Unfortunately not much research has been done on the Australian naticids but South Australia has an interesting tropical element to its fauna so it is possible this is a tropical Indo-West Pacific species, which might make it easier to name.

Best wishes,
Bill Rudman

Rudman, W.B., 2010 (Jan 13). Comment on Aquarium mystery from South Australia by Andrea Madeley. [Message in] Sea Slug Forum. Australian Museum, Sydney. Available from http://www.seaslugforum.net/find/23093

Factsheet

Naticidae - naticids, moon snails

Related messages

  1. Re: Cephalaspid ? from Lastovo, Croatia
    From: Thomas Huelsken, May 20, 2010
  2. Re: Cephalaspid ? from Lastovo, Croatia
    From: Roman Luštrik, May 6, 2010
  3. Cephalaspid ? from Lastovo, Croatia
    From: Roman Luštrik, May 5, 2010
  4. Re: Slug-like naticid snail from northern Chile
    From: Brian Dyer, August 1, 2006
  5. Slug-like naticid snail from northern Chile
    From: Brian Dyer, July 17, 2006
  6. Slug-like snail from Florida
    From: Paul Osmond, September 5, 2003
  7. Is this a snail or a slug?
    From: Jim Rigdon, July 4, 2001

Show factsheet and all related messages