Thatcheria mirabilis (Japanese wonder snail) 2 (24431388733)

Description:

Description: Thatcheria mirabilis Angas, 1877 - Japanese wonder snail (abapertural view) (public display, Bailey-Matthews Shell Museum, Sanibel Island, Florida, USA) The gastropods (snails & slugs) are a group of molluscs that occupy marine, freshwater, and terrestrial environments. Most gastropods have a calcareous external shell (the snails). Some lack a shell completely, or have reduced internal shells (the slugs & sea slugs & pteropods). Most members of the Gastropoda are marine. Most marine snails are herbivores (algae grazers) or predators/carnivores. The Japanese wonder snail, Thatcheria mirabilis, is probably the most distinctively-shaped gastropod shell on Earth. Its shell has extremely keeled whorls, resulting in the development of a prominent winding shelf. It is known from the far-western Pacific Basin, for example Japan, the Philippines, and Taiwan. This species is part of the Japanese Province: "Sandwiched between the cold-waters of northern Japan and the warmer, more southerly areas of Okinawa and Taiwan is the rather isolated Japanese Province containing such endemic species as the noble scallop, Japanese wonder shell and many latiaxis snails. This temperate-water area supports about 1,500 species, including the famous Japanese pearl oyster." [info. from museum signage] Classification: Animalia, Mollusca, Gastropoda, Neogastropoda, Conoidea, Raphitomidae Locality: unrecorded/undisclosed/unspecified More info. at: www.jaxshells.org/japanese.htm. Date: 3 January 2016, 16:33. Source: Thatcheria mirabilis (Japanese wonder snail) 2. Author: James St. John.