Eelgrass limpet

Taxobox
name = Eelgrass limpet


image_width =
image_caption =
status = EX | status_system = IUCN2.3 [Bouchet, P. 1996. "Lottia alveus". In: IUCN 2007. 2007 IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. . Downloaded on 27 September 2008.]
extinct = 1929 [COSEWIC. 2005. [http://www.sararegistry.gc.ca/virtual_sara/files/species/clwsa%5F0505%5Fe%2Epdf Canadian Species at Risk] . Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada. 64 pp., page 6.]
regnum = Animalia
phylum = Mollusca
classis = Gastropoda
subclassis =
superordo =
ordo = Patellogastropoda
subordo = Nacellina
infraordo =
superfamilia = Acmaeoidea
familia = Lottiidae
genus = "Lottia"
species = "L. alveus"
binomial = "Lottia alveus"
binomial_authority = (Conrad, 1831)

The eelgrass limpet, (Bowl Limpet), †"Lottia alveus", was a small species of sea snail or limpet, a marine gastropod mollusk in the family Lottiidae, the "Lottia" limpets, a genus of true limpets. This species lived in the western Atlantic Ocean.

The eelgrass limpet now appears to be extinct, but up until the late 1920s, this species was apparently quite common, and was easy to find at low tide in eelgrass beds, in many sheltered localities on the northeastern seaboard of North America.

Distribution before extinction

This limpet used to be found from Labrador, Canada, as far south as New York.

Habitat

This limpet used to live on the blades of "Zostera marina", a species of seagrass.

Cause of extinction

The extinction does not seem to have been caused directly by human interference. This small limpet disappeared from the fauna because of a sudden catastrophic collapse of the populations of the eelgrass plant, which was its sole habitat and food source. In the early 1930s, the seagrass beds all along that part of the coastline were decimated by "Wasting Disease", which was caused by a slime mold.

Some colonies of the seagrass "Zostera marina" lived in brackish water, and these areas served as refugia. Thus the eelgrass plants were able to survive the catastrophic impact of the disease. The limpet however was unable to tolerate anything but normal salinity seawater, and therefore it did not live through the crisis.

References

External links

* http://biology.mcgill.ca/undergra/c465a/biodiver/2000/eelgrass-limpet/eelgrass-limpet.htm
* [http://www.biolbull.org/cgi/content/abstract/180/1/72 The First Historical Extinction of a Marine Invertebrate in an Ocean Basin: The Demise of the Eelgrass Limpet Lottia alveus]
* http://www.sararegistry.gc.ca/species/speciesDetails_e.cfm?sid=175