Vitularia salebrosa

Vitularia salebrosa is a species of sea snail, a marine gastropod mollusk in the family Muricidae, the murex snails or rock snails.[1]

Vitularia salebrosa
Scientific classification
Kingdom:
Animalia
Phylum:
Mollusca
Class:
Gastropoda
(unranked):
clade Caenogastropoda
clade Hypsogastropoda
clade Neogastropoda
Superfamily:
Muricoidea
Family:
Muricidae
Subfamily:
Muricopsinae
Genus:
Vitularia
Species:
V. salebrosa
Binomial name
Vitularia salebrosa
(King, 1832)
Synonyms[1]

Murex salebrosus King, 1832[2][3]
Vitularia extensa M. Smith, 1947

Distribution

V. salebrosa is found on the tropical Pacific coast of America, from Baja California to Peru. It lives under rocks in the intertidal and subtidal zones.[4]:143

Feeding

This species is an ectoparasite of other molluscs. Members of the species bore a hole through the host's shell and suck its blood or digestive organ (depending on the prey) over a period of months.[5][4] Consistent with their suctorial feeding habit, they have a long proboscis, reduced buccal mass, and simplified digestive system compared to other Muricids.[4]

Prey include the oyster Ostrea cf. fisheri , the limpet-like slipper shell Crucibulum spinosum, and the vermetid gastropod Tripsycha (Eualetes) tulipa.[5]

See also
  • Genkaimurex varicosus, an ectoparasite of scallops in Japanese waters.(Herbert, 2009, citing Matsukuma, 1977)

References
  1. Vitularia salebrosa (King & Broderip, 1832). Retrieved through: World Register of Marine Species on 25 April 2010.
  2. King, Phillip P. (1832). "Description of the Cirrhipeda, Conchifera and Mollusca, in a collection formed by the officers of H.M.S. Adventure and Beagle employed between the years 1826 and 1830 in surveying the southern coasts of South America, including the Straits of Magalhaens and the coast of Tierra del Fuego". The Zoological Journal. 5: 332–349. BHL, volume digitised by Smithsonian. Description of M. salebrosus is on p. 347
  3. Coan, Eugene P.; Petit, Richard E.; Zelaya, Diego G. (2011). "Authorship and date of a key South American paper by Phillip P. King (1832)". The Nautilus. 125 (2): 86–88.
  4. Simone, Luiz Ricardo L.; Herbert, Gregory S.; Merle, Didier (2009). "Unusual anatomy of the ectoparasitic muricid Vitularia salebrosa (King and Broderip, 1832) (Neogastropoda: Muricidae) from the Pacific coast of Panama". The Nautilus. 123 (3): 137–147. Available online at: ResearchGate (HTML, PDF), BHL (info, scan of print version).
  5. Herbert, Gregory S.; Dietl, Gregory P.; Fortunado, Helena; Simone, Luiz Ricardo L.; Sliko, Jennifer (2009). "Extremely slow feeding in a tropical drilling ectoparasite, Vitularia salebrosa (King and Broderip, 1832) (Gastropoda:Muricidae), on molluscan hosts from Pacific Panama". The Nautilus. 123 (3): 121–136.


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