Notodiaphana fragilis is a species of marine 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...

, gastropod mollusk in the clade Architectibranchia

Architectibranchia

Architectibranchia is a clade of marine snails, gastropod mollusks.It has been originally established containing the superfamilies Acteonoidea, Ringiculoidea, and Diaphanoidea.- 2005 taxonomy :...

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Notodiaphana fragilis is the only species in the genus Notodiaphana. Genus Notodiaphana is the only genus in the family Notodiaphanidae.

It has been classified in the superfamily Diaphanoidea

Diaphanoidea

Diaphanoidea is a taxonomic superfamily of small sea snails, marine opisthobranch gastropod mollusks or micromollusks in the Cephalaspidea, the headshield slugs and bubble snails....

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Shell description

The little-known species have small, flimsy, almost globular shells, known as paper bubble shells

Gastropod shell

The gastropod shell is a shell which is part of the body of a gastropod or snail, one kind of mollusc. The gastropod shell is an external skeleton or exoskeleton, which serves not only for muscle attachment, but also for protection from predators and from mechanical damage...

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The shell is minute, thin, fragile, colorless to translucent, and usually less than 5 mm in size. The overall shape is ovate, pear-shaped, and bulbous. There is a sunken apex

Apex (mollusc)

Apex is an anatomical term for the tip of the mollusc shell of a gastropod, scaphopod, or cephalopod mollusc.-Gastropods:The word "apex" is most often used to mean the tip of the spire of the shell of a gastropod...

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The shells resemble those of the genus Haminoea

Haminoea

Haminoea is a genus of medium-sized sea snails or bubble snails, marine opisthobranch gastropod molluscs in the family Haminoeidae, the haminoea bubble snails, part of the clade Cephalaspidea, the headshield slugs and bubble snails....

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Distribution

The distribution of Notodiaphana fragilis includes the Indian Ocean

Indian Ocean

The Indian Ocean is the third largest of the world's oceanic divisions, covering approximately 20% of the water on the Earth's surface. It is bounded on the north by the Indian Subcontinent and Arabian Peninsula ; on the west by eastern Africa; on the east by Indochina, the Sunda Islands, and...

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Ecology

This species occur in the sublitoral to abyssal zones.

Further reafing

• Bois-Reymond Marcus, E. D. (1976). "A taxonomic survey of the genus Toledonia Dall, 1902 (Opistobranchia, Diaphanidae)". Zoologica Scripta
  Zoologica Scripta
  Zoologica Scripta is a bi-monthly scientific journal on systematic zoology, published by Blackwell Publishing Limited, on behalf of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters and the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences...
  
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