Nucella squamosa
Species of gastropod
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Nucella squamosa, common name the scaly dogwhelk, is a species of sea snail, a marine gastropod mollusk in the family Muricidae, the murex snails or rock snails.[1]
| Nucella squamosa | |
|---|---|
| |
| Five views of a shell of Nucella squamosa (Lamarck, 1816) | |
Scientific classification  | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Mollusca |
| Class: | Gastropoda |
| Subclass: | Caenogastropoda |
| Order: | Neogastropoda |
| Family: | Muricidae |
| Genus: | Nucella |
| Species: | N. squamosa |
| Binomial name | |
| Nucella squamosa (Lamarck, 1816) | |
| Synonyms[1] | |
|
Purpura clathrata Blainville, 1832 | |
Description
The scaly dogwhelk is a small brown whelk with many fine knobbly spiral ridges on its shell. It grows up to 5 cm in total length. The ridges of the snail's shell are not often visible because the whelk is usually overgrown by the high-spined commensal hydroid, Hydtractinia altispina, which looks prickly and is orange.[2]
Distribution
This marine snail is found off the southern African coast from central Namibia to Port St Johns, subtidally to 50m under water.[2]
