Antisabia, common name

Common name

A common name of a taxon or organism is a name in general use within a community; it is often contrasted with the scientific name for the same organism...

 hoof shells or hoof snails, is a genus

Genus

In biology, a genus is a low-level taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms, which is an example of definition by genus and differentia...

 of small sea snail

Snail

Snail is a common name applied to most of the members of the molluscan class Gastropoda that have coiled shells in the adult stage. When the word is used in its most general sense, it includes sea snails, land snails and freshwater snails. The word snail without any qualifier is however more often...

s, limpet

Limpet

Limpet is a common name for a number of different kinds of saltwater and freshwater snails ; it is applied to those snails that have a simple shell which is more or less conical in shape, and either is not spirally coiled, or appears not to be coiled in the adult snails.The name limpet is most...

-like marine

Marine (ocean)

Marine is an umbrella term. As an adjective it is usually applicable to things relating to the sea or ocean, such as marine biology, marine ecology and marine geology...

 gastropod molluscs in the family Hipponicidae

Hipponicidae

Hipponicidae, common name hoof shells or hoof snails, is a family of small sea snails, limpet-like marine gastropod molluscs in the superfamily Vanikoroidea.-Genera:Genera within the family Hipponicidae include:...

.

Description

The sedentary species in this genus live on the underside of stones or commensally with their shells loosely attached to other and larger gastropods or invertebrates. This commensalism results in some morphological changes : a thin basal plate, a very long snout and a small osphradium

Osphradium

The osphradium is the olfactory organ in certain molluscs, linked with the respiration organ.The main function of this is to test incoming water for silt and other possible food particles.It is used by all members of the Genus Conus....

. They live in colonies with a few big females are surrounded by many smaller males. The egg mass is kept within the female shell. When the eggs hatch, a few young escape at the crawling stage.

Genera

Genera within the genus Antisabia include:

• Antisabia erma (Cotton, 1938)
• Antisabia foliacea (Quoy & Gaimard, 1835)
• Antisabia imbricatus Gould, 1846
• Antisabia juliae Poulicek, Bussers & Vandewalle, 1996