Family Littorinidae - periwinkles

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Gastropoda
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Fresh : Yes | Brackish : Yes | Marine : Yes
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Shell ovate conical, usually strong and without an umbilicus. Outer surface smoothish or with spiral or nodular sculpture. Periostracum absent. Aperture rounded, porcelaneous, without a siphonal canal. Columella smooth or with a tooth-like swelling. Operculum thin and corneous, with relatively few spiral coils and either ovate with a lateral nucleus or rounded with a subcentral nucleus. Head with a short snout and conical tentacles bearing eyes on small swellings at their outer bases. Foot rather strong, the 2 sides of which can move independently. Widely distributed littoral animals, occurring in tropical temperate to cold climates, in the intertidal zone and the splash area well above high tide levels. Species living high up the shore can survive desiccation, and have reduced gills and a vascularized mantle cavity acting as a primitive lung. Very common on rocky shores, or in tidal marshes and mangroves. Herbivores, feeding on algae which are grazed with a powerful radula. Sexes separate, fertilization internal.. Eggs generally laid in small corneous capsules and hatching as free-swimming planktonic larvae, or brooded in the mantle cavity of the female. Littorinidae are easily collected on the shore by coastal inhabitants, for subsistence or for local shellcraft (Ref. 349).
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Ref.
[ e.g. 9948]                       
Glossary
                    [ e.g. cephalopods]