Pterotrachea coronata
Encyclopedia
Pterotrachea coronata is a species
Species
In biology, a species is one of the basic units of biological classification and a taxonomic rank. A species is often defined as a group of organisms capable of interbreeding and producing fertile offspring. While in many cases this definition is adequate, more precise or differing measures are...

 of large floating sea snail
Sea snail
Sea snail is a common name for those snails that normally live in saltwater, marine gastropod molluscs....

, a pelagic gastropod mollusc 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...

 Pterotracheidae
Pterotracheidae
Pterotracheidae is a family of medium-sized to large floating sea snails, pelagic gastropod molluscs. They are in the superfamily Pterotracheoidea along with two other similar pelagic families, the Atlantidae and the Carinariidae....

.

This pelagic snail is not at all closely related to the pelagic opistobranchs such as the sea angel
Sea angel
Sea angels previously known as one kind of pteropod, are a large group of small swimming sea slugs in six different families. These are pelagic marine opisthobranch gastropod molluscs in the clade Gymnosomata within the larger clade Heterobranchia....

s and sea butterflies. It is in the family Pterotracheidae, which is in the clade Littorinimorpha, and as such it is related to such families as the tritons (Ranellidae
Ranellidae
Ranellidae, common name the triton shells or tritons, is a taxonomic family of small to very large predatory sea snails, marine gastropod mollusks in the clade Littorinimorpha.-Subfamilies:...

) and the tun shells (Tonnidae
Tonnidae
Tonnidae is a family of medium-sized to very large sea snails, known as the tun shells. These are marine gastropod molluscs in the clade Sorbeoconcha and the clade Littorinimorpha.- Taxonomy :...

).

Further reading

  • Powell A W B
    Arthur William Baden Powell
    Dr Arthur William Baden Powell CBE was a New Zealand malacologist, naturalist and palaeontologist, a major influence in the study and classification of New Zealand molluscs through much of the twentieth century. He was known to his friends and family by his third name, "Baden".Powell was born at...

    , New Zealand Mollusca, William Collins Publishers Ltd
    HarperCollins
    HarperCollins is a publishing company owned by News Corporation. It is the combination of the publishers William Collins, Sons and Co Ltd, a British company, and Harper & Row, an American company, itself the result of an earlier merger of Harper & Brothers and Row, Peterson & Company. The worldwide...

    , Auckland, New Zealand 1979 ISBN 0-00-216906-1

External links

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