Hinea brasiliana
Encyclopedia
Hinea brasiliana is a species of small sea snail
in the family
Planaxidae
. It is one of only a few sea snail species able to bioluminesce
.
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...
in the family
Family (biology)
In biological classification, family is* a taxonomic rank. Other well-known ranks are life, domain, kingdom, phylum, class, order, genus, and species, with family fitting between order and genus. As for the other well-known ranks, there is the option of an immediately lower rank, indicated by the...
Planaxidae
Planaxidae
Planaxidae, common name planaxids, are a taxonomic family of small and minute sea snails, pantropical marine gastropod molluscs in the clade Sorbeoconcha.- Taxonomy :...
. It is one of only a few sea snail species able to bioluminesce
Bioluminescence
Bioluminescence is the production and emission of light by a living organism. Its name is a hybrid word, originating from the Greek bios for "living" and the Latin lumen "light". Bioluminescence is a naturally occurring form of chemiluminescence where energy is released by a chemical reaction in...
.
Further Reading
- Snails flash a green alarm light, Victoria Gill, BBC - Earth News