Resolved Snail ID

I found this snail and I am kind of concerned because I have had some corals missing lately.

I was thinking whelk but I'm not sure.

Do you suppose this thing could have consumed a small patch of green star polyps? Around 6 small polyps.

 

Try this sight it may help.

marine snail pictures - Google Images

 

It's not really a whelk, although it may be related to them. It could be a worm-eating miter species (Strigatella), but I believe it's a Dove Shell, in the family Columbellidae with the so-called Strombus Grazers. A few snails in this family are omnivorous, but I don't think yours is one of them. If you could take it out of the tank and photograph it in a dish of water, preferably from the apertural side with the animal withdrawn, I could tell you for sure.

Most likely candidate is this one:

Pictocolumbella ocellata

A couple of others variable species that may look very much like yours:

Pyrene tankervillei
Pyrene punctata

Did you find the snail embedded in the star polyps? I might be suspicious if it were found exactly where the polyps had been eaten, otherwise I'd figure the guy was innocent.

Cheers,




Don

 

Nope. I found him on the other side of the tank so I guess he is innocent.

I took some better pictures anyway with the snail out of the tank.

 

Yep, absolutely columbellid, as I guessed. See where the lip sinks in below the suture, making the lip look concave, and how the lip thickens in the middle? That's typical of the Dove Snails, and none of the true whelks have a lip like that.

Cheers,


Don

 

Brillant...!!!

 

Thanks Don! You really know your snails! We are lucky to have you here.

 

Thanks guys! I'm just on a mission to rid the internet of a plague of bad snail ID's LOL

Take care,




Don

 

Pyrene testudinaria

 

Yes, if the Philippine shells identified by Poppe & Suduiraut as Pardalina testudinaria (the newest nomenclature for Pyrene testudinaria) turn out to be correctly identified, the snail could also be that species, as bioreefdude points out. They are significantly different from the "standard" versions of that species, though, which are brown and sometimes speckled, earning them the name "testudinaria," meaning that they resemble a tortoise. All the verifiable P. testudinaria that I ever collected were much more slender, and more smoothly rounded toward the spire, than Guido's shells.

Cheers,



Don