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      • Current part: 45 (3), 2025
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      • Issue 1
        • Collecting East African marine snails
        • Field meeting to Box Hill
        • Introduction
        • Oyster Catchers feeding on Patella vulgata
      • Issue 2
        • Collecting localities in the Cape Province
        • Field meeting Walton-on-Naze
        • Herons, Moorhens and Rats feeding on Anodonta anatina
        • Introduction to molluscan taxonomy 1) Species and subspecies
        • Volutes
      • Issue 3
        • Introduction to molluscan taxonomy 2) The significance of types
        • Land and freshwater snails: additions to the British List since 1926
        • Littoral collecting in the Scilly Isles
        • Snails in a Sussex garden
      • Issue 4
        • Biographical Note
        • Introduction to molluscan taxonomy 3) The genus
        • Learning in Nucella lapillus
        • Mollusca on Liverpool bomb sites
        • The Cardiacea
        • The Strombidae
      • Issue 5
        • A suggested method for extracting the animals from small high-spired shells
        • Commensual crabs in Mytilus edulis
        • Field meeting at Shell Bay, Dorset
        • Field meeting at West Runton and Overstrand
        • Introduction to molluscan taxonomy 4) Taxonomic history
        • J.G. Bruguiere 1750-98
      • Issue 6
        • A little more biography
        • Field meeting at Amberley
        • Field meeting to Grasswood, Yorkshire May 1962
        • Marine collecting in New Zealand
        • Marine mollusca of Carnac, Brittany
        • On the use and misuse of common names
        • Strand shells after Cornish gales
        • Trochus magus in the Isle of Wight
      • Issue 7
        • 35 years collecting
        • Field meeting Epping Forest
        • Field meeting White Downs
        • More strand shells after Cornish gales
        • Natural History Museum at Craster
        • Notes on the pholadidae
      • Issue 8
        • Field meeting at Norwich
        • Geology for conchologists - Introduction
        • Geology for conchologists - The last 15,000 years
        • The Strophocheilidae
      • Issue 9
        • More autobiography
        • Sinistrorsity
        • Some etymology
        • Systematics sewn up
      • Issue 10
        • Field meeting at Norbury Park
        • Papers for students
        • Rearing snails from the egg
      • Issue 11
        • David Landsborough
        • Field meeting at Albury
        • Field meeting at Leith Hill
        • Posting living mollusca
        • Snails extinct in England but living abroad
        • Still more autobiography
        • The Viviparidae
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Lutraria angustior

Submitted by Steve Wilkinson on Sat, 05/12/2009 22:15
Distribution and status

Distributed from the English Channel south to the Mediterranean

Ecology and behaviour

Burrows in muddy sand or gravel where it filters phytoplankton.

Key identification features
  • Lower margin of pallial sinus is confluent with the pallial line
Taxon version key
[NBNSYS0000176299]
Sort order
10440
Taxonomic group
Marine bivalve
  • Read more about Lutraria angustior
  • Log in or register to post comments

Solid shell up to about 10cm in length. The outside is dirty white in colour; the inside is white. The shell gapes at both ends. The surface is sculptured with fine concentric rings. The pallial sinus is relatively deep.

Limatula sulcata

Submitted by Steve Wilkinson on Sat, 05/12/2009 22:15
Ecology and behaviour

Lives on mud or sandy mud where it filters phytoplankton?

Key identification features
  • Surface is sculptured with 30 or more radiating ribs
  • The shell is symmetrical around the beak.
Taxon version key
[NBNSYS0000176150]
Sort order
9510
Taxonomic group
Marine bivalve
  • Read more about Limatula sulcata

Thin shell up to 1.5cm in length. The shell is translucent but this is obscured by the dirty white or cream periostracum. The surface of the shell is sculptured with radiating ribs and concentric lines. When alive the animal displays obvious pink tentacles.

Limatula subauriculata

Submitted by Steve Wilkinson on Sat, 05/12/2009 22:15
Ecology and behaviour

Lives on mud, sand or gravel bottoms where it feeds by filtering phytoplankton.

Key identification features
  • The shell is symmetrical around the beak.
  • Surface is sculptured with less than 24 radiating ribs
Taxon version key
[NBNSYS0000176149]
Sort order
9490
Taxonomic group
Marine bivalve
  • Read more about Limatula subauriculata

Thin shell up to 6mm in length. The shell is white in colour but obscured by cream coloured periostracum. The surface of the shell is sculptured with radiating ribs (the largest of which is the niddle one) and concentric lines.

Limaria loscombi

Submitted by Steve Wilkinson on Sat, 05/12/2009 22:15
Distribution and status

Not commonDistributed from Norway south to the Iberian Peninsula and into the Mediterranean.

Ecology and behaviour

This species prefers bottoms of muddy sand or gravel. Its orange tentacles which cannot be withdrawn make it vulnerable to predation and as a result is either lives in a chamber sunk into the sediment or in a nest bound together using byssus threads.

Key identification features
  • 40 to 60 radiating ribs
  • The valves do not gape, or do so only slightly
  • The shell is not symmetrical around the beak
Taxon version key
[NBNSYS0000176147]
Sort order
9470
Taxonomic group
Marine bivalve
  • Read more about Limaria loscombi

Thin shell up to 2cm in length. The shell is translucent white in colour. The surface is sculptured with radiating ribs and fine concentric lines.

Limaria hians

Submitted by Steve Wilkinson on Sat, 05/12/2009 22:15
Distribution and status

LocalDistributed from the Lofoten Islands to the Iberian Peninsula and into the Mediterranean.

Ecology and behaviour

This species prefers bottoms of coarse sand or gravel. The orange tentacles cannot be withdrawn potentially making it quite vulnerable to predation and as a result it often lives in a 'nest'. Thiscan be up to 25cm across and is knitted together using byssus threads. Filter feeds?

Key identification features
  • Fifty or more radiating ribs
  • There is a prominent gape at the sides of the valves
  • The shell is not symmetrical around the beak
Taxon version key
[NBNSYS0000176146]
Sort order
9460
Taxonomic group
Marine bivalve
  • Read more about Limaria hians

Thin but solid shell up to 2.5cm in length. It is white to brown in colour tending to be lighter when younger. The surface is sculptured with radiating ribs and concentric lines. When alive it has prominent orange tentacles.

Lepton squamosum

Submitted by Steve Wilkinson on Sat, 05/12/2009 22:15
Ecology and behaviour

Lives around the burrows of the callianassids Lipogebia deltaura and L. stellata in muddy sand and gravel.

Key identification features
  • The hinge does not possess teeth
  • Small pits over the shell surface
Taxon version key
[NBNSYS0000176088]
Sort order
9990
Taxonomic group
Marine bivalve
  • Read more about Lepton squamosum

Fragile shell up to 1.5cm in length. It is translucent white both outside and inside. The surface of the shell is sculptured with fine concentric and radiating lines with small pits distributed over the surface.

Laevicardium crassum

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Sat, 05/12/2009 22:15
Vernacular names
Smooth cockle
Distribution and status

Distributed from the Norwegian Sea to the Iberian Peninsula and into the Mediterranean.

Ecology and behaviour

Living in sand, muddy sand, shell gravel and maerl 10-100m. Active burrower.

Key identification features
  • The surface of the shell is smooth; the ribs do not project
  • The crenulations along the inner margin do not match the ribbing
Taxon version key
[NBNSYS0000175981]
Sort order
10330
Taxonomic group
Marine bivalve
  • Read more about Laevicardium crassum
  • Log in or register to post comments

Up to 75mm long, 75mm high, 45mm across, rounded-triangular, somewhat oblique.

Kellia suborbicularis

Submitted by Steve Wilkinson on Sat, 05/12/2009 22:15
Distribution and status

CommonDistributed from the north of Norway to the Mediterranean

Ecology and behaviour

Lives in crevices ?attached? particularly in muddy areas.

Key identification features
  • The right valve has one anterior lateral tooth.
  • Shell surface is sculptured with concentric lines
  • ?shape?
Taxon version key
[NBNSYS0000175955]
Sort order
9950
Taxonomic group
Marine bivalve
  • Read more about Kellia suborbicularis

Fragile shell up to 1cm in length. It is coloured white both inside and out. The surface is sculptured with fine concentric lines.

Jujubinus miliaris

Submitted by Steve Wilkinson on Sat, 05/12/2009 22:15
Distribution and status

Occasional

Occurs from northern Norway south to the Iberian Peninsula and into the Mediterranean.

Ecology and behaviour

Lives on stoney or gravelly bottoms.

Similar species
  • Calliostoma granulatum has sides which are slightly concave
  • Calliostoma zizyphinum spiral ridges on the last whorl are not beaded
Key identification features
  • Conical shell with flat sides and a pointed apex
  • Breadth approximately equal to height
  • Shells spiral ridges are crossed by transverse ridges giving a reticulated pattern
Taxon version key
[NBNSYS0000175945]
Sort order
750
Taxonomic group
Marine snail
  • Read more about Jujubinus miliaris

Conical shell up to 12mm in height with seven to eight whorls. The colour is white marked with brown and purple spots. Shell surface is sculptured with 5 to 6 spiral ridges which are broken into granulations by numerous oblique lines. The animal possesses three pairs of epipodal tentacles.

Iothia fulva

Submitted by Steve Wilkinson on Sat, 05/12/2009 22:15
Distribution and status

Frequent

North of Norway to the north of the North Sea and the Atlantic Coast south to the Azores.

Ecology and behaviour

Probably a detritivore feeding on detritus picked up from the rock surface.

Similar species
  • Lepeta caeca is more conical
  • Propilidium exiguum has small internal septum
Key identification features
  • Apex tilted and very close to the anterior edge of the shell
  • Absence of internal septum
Taxon version key
[NBNSYS0000175884]
Sort order
1020
Taxonomic group
Marine snail
  • Read more about Iothia fulva

Conical shell up to 7mm in length (2.5mm in height). The shell is yellow or orange with white rays and is semitransparent but not glossy.. The surface is sculptured with radial and concentric ridges.

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