Cerithidea californica

Cerithidea californica
A shell of Cerithidea californica
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Mollusca
Class:	Gastropoda
(unranked):	clade Caenogastropoda clade Sorbeoconcha
Superfamily:	Cerithioidea
Family:	Potamididae
Genus:	Cerithidea
Species:	C. californica
Binomial name
Cerithidea californica (Haldeman, 1840)[1]
Synonyms
Cerithium (Potamis) californicum Haldeman, 1840 Cerithidea mazatlanica (H. F. Carpenter, 1857) Cerithidea pullata A. A. Gould, 1856

Cerithidea californica, common name the California hornsnail^[2] or the California horn snail,^[3] is a species of sea snail, a marine gastropod mollusk in the family Potamididae.

Distribution

The distribution of Cerithidea californica is from central California, USA to Baja California Sur, Mexico.^[3]

The type locality is "California, in brackish water".^[1]

Description

The shape of the shell is turriform and is about 1 inch in length.^[1]

Ecology

Cerithidea californica lives in salt-marsh dominated estuaries.^[3]

The snails primarily feed on benthic diatoms.^[3]

Throughout its range in California, these snails grow and reproduce from spring through fall (March-October) and cease growth and reproduction during the winter (November-February).^[3] Maximum longevity for these snails is at least 6-10 years, and this appears to be the case for uninfected as well as infected snails.^[3]

At least 18 trematode species parasitically castrate California horn snails.^[3] A trematode infects a snail with a miracidium larva that either swims to infect the snail, or hatches after the snail ingests the trematode egg.^[3] After infection, the trematode parthenitae clonally replicate and produce free-swimming offspring (cercariae).^[3] These offspring infect second intermediate hosts (various invertebrates and fishes) where they form cysts (metacercariae).^[3] The trematodes infect bird final hosts when birds eat second intermediate hosts.^[3]

References

This article incorporates CC-BY-2.0 text from the reference^[3]

1. ^ ^{a b c} Haldeman S. S. (1840). A monograph of the Limniades and other freshwater univalve shells of North America. number 1, Philadelphia, J. Dobson. an unnumbered page.
2. ^ "Cerithidea californica (Haldeman, 1840)". ITIS, accessed 10 February 2011.
3. ^ ^{a b c d e f g h i j k l} Hechinger R. F. (2010). "Mortality affects adaptive allocation to growth and reproduction: field evidence from a guild of body snatchers". BMC Evolutionary Biology 10: 136. doi:10.1186/1471-2148-10-136.

Further reading

• Driscoll A. L. (1972). "Structure and function of the alimentary tract of Batillaria zonalis and Cerithidea californica: style-bearing mesogastropods". Veliger 14: 375-386.
• Lafferty K. D. (1993). "Effects of parasitic castration on growth, reproduction and population dynamics of the marine snail Cerithidea californica". Marine Ecology Progress Series 96: 229-237. doi:10.3354/meps096229.
• Lafferty K. D. (1993). "The marine snail, Cerithidea californica, matures at smaller sizes where parasitism is high". Oikos 68(1): 3-11. JSTOR.
• Martin W. E. (1972). "An annotated key to the cercariae that develop in the snail Cerithidea californica". Bulletin of the Southern California Academy of Sciences 71: 39-43.
• McCloy M. J. (1979). "Population regulation in the deposit feeding mesogastropod Cerithidea californica as it occurs in a San Diego salt marsh habitat". MS. University of California, San Diego.
• Race M. S. (1981). "Field ecology and natural history of Cerithidea californica (Gastropoda: Prosobranchia) in San Francisco Bay". Veliger 24: 18-27.
• Sousa W. P. (1983). "Host life history and the effect of parasitic castration on growth a field study of Cerithidea californica (Gastropoda: Prosobranchia) and its trematode parasites". Journal of Experimental Marine Biology and Ecology 73(3): 273-296. doi:10.1016/0022-0981(83)90051-5.
• Sousa W. P. (1993). "Size-dependent predation on the salt-marsh snail Cerithidea californica Haldeman". Journal of Experimental Marine Biology & Ecology 166: 19-37.
• Sousa W. P & Gleason M. (1989). "Does parasitic infection compromise host survival under extreme environmental conditions: the case for Cerithidea californica (Gastropoda: Prosobranchia)". Oecologia, Berlin 80: 456-464. doi:10.1007/BF00380066.

External links

• Cerithidea californica at National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) website.