Strombus alatus

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Strombus alatus
Strombus alatus.jpg
Front view of S. alatus showing the snout in front and stalked eyes behind, one of which reaches out through the stromboid notch in the shell
Strombus alatus Gmelin, 1791 2013 000.JPG
Scientific classification edit
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Mollusca
Class: Gastropoda
Subclass: Caenogastropoda
Clade: Hypsogastropoda
Order: Littorinimorpha
Family: Strombidae
Genus: Strombus
Species:
S. alatus
Binomial name
Strombus alatus
(Gmelin, 1791)
Synonyms

Strombus alatus, the Florida fighting conch, is a species of medium-sized, warm-water sea snail, a marine gastropod mollusk in the family Strombidae, the true conchs.

Distribution[]

This conch occurs in the Western Atlantic Ocean from North Carolina to Florida and the Gulf of Mexico, Louisiana, Texas, and the east coast of Mexico.[1][2]

Description[]

The shell can be as large as 112 mm (4.4 in).[1][3]

This species is closely similar to Strombus pugilis, the West Indian fighting conch, which has a more southerly range. S. alatus shells have less prominent subsutural spines and slightly more projected outer lips. Some scientists have treated the two as distinct species; others as subspecies.[4] In an extensive study of the Stromboidea in 2005, Simone provisionally treated these as distinct species, but observed, "no spectacular morphological difference was found [and] all related differences, even those of the genital system, can be regarded as extreme of variation of a single, wide distributed, variable species."[5]

Phylogeny[]

Fossil Strombus alatus
from Caloosahatchee Formation, Sarasota, Florida, USA

A cladogram based on sequences of nuclear histone H3 gene and mitochondrial cytochrome-c oxidase I (COI) gene showing phylogenetic relationships of (32 analyzed) species in the genus Strombus and Lambis, including S. alatus, was proposed by Latiolais et al. (2006):[6]

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Strombus gallus

 
 

Strombus gigas

 
 
 

Strombus costatus

 
 
 
 

Strombus raninus

 
 

Strombus peruvianus

 
 
 
 

 
 
 

Strombus latus

 
 
 
 
 
 

Strombus pugilis

 
 

Strombus alatus

 
 
 

Strombus gracilior

 
 
 

Strombus granulatus

 
 
 
 
 
 
Phylogeny and relationships of Eastern Pacific and Atlantic Strombus species, according to Latiolais et al. (2006)[6]

Habitat[]

The minimum recorded depth for this species is the surface; the maximum recorded depth is 183 m.[3]

References[]

  1. ^ a b "Malacolog ver. 4.1.1". The Academy of Natural Sciences. Retrieved 30 September 2009.
  2. ^ Perry, H.; Larsen, K. (2004). "Strombus alatus Gmelin, 1791 Florida Fighting Conch" (PDF). A Picture Guide to Shelf Invertebrates from the Northern Gulf of Mexico. Retrieved 27 June 2010.
  3. ^ a b Welch J. J. (2010). "The "Island Rule" and Deep-Sea Gastropods: Re-Examining the Evidence". PLoS ONE 5(1): e8776. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0008776.
  4. ^ Simone (2005): Comparative Morphological study of representatives of the three families of Stromboidea and the Xenophoroidea (Mollusca, Caenogastropoda), with an assessment of their phylogeny Archived 5 March 2012 at the Wayback Machine, p. 142.
  5. ^ Simone (2005): Comparative Morphological study of representatives of the three families of Stromboidea and the Xenophoroidea (Mollusca, Caenogastropoda), with an assessment of their phylogeny Archived 5 March 2012 at the Wayback Machine, p. 169.
  6. ^ a b Latiolais J. M., Taylor M. S., Roy K. & Hellberg M. E. (2006). "A molecular phylogenetic analysis of strombid gastropod morphological diversity". Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 41: 436-444. doi:10.1016/j.ympev.2006.05.027. PDF.

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