Family Siphonariidae - false limpets

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Gastropoda
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Fresh : No | Brackish : No | Marine : Yes
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Shell conical, not coiled, mostly dark in colour, often with a weak marginal lobe on the right side. Apex subcentral or somewhat posterior. Sculpture more or less developed, essentially radial. Outline of the aperture irregularly ovate. Inteior non-nacreous, often shining, with a ring-like muscle scar, interrupted on the right side where there is a shallow siphonal radial groove. No operculum. Head wide, devoid of tentacles. Foot large and rounded, very strong. Mantle cavity modified into a pulmonary chamber opening on the right side of the body, along the internal radial groove of the shell. Sedentary, air-breathing animals, common on intertidal rocks where they clamp by means of their strong foot. Graze on encrusting lichens and algae with a powerful radula. Mostly hermaphrodites. Eggs laid in gelatinous ribbon, hatching as free-swimming larvae or as crawling juveniles. Siphonariidae are locally collected for food by coastal populations in the western Pacific (Ref. 349).
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Ref.
[ e.g. 3742]                  
Glossary
                      [ e.g. cnidaria]
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