Animal Diversity Web

Ge­o­graphic Range

Lit­to­rina ir­ro­rata is found in salt marshes that ex­tend from Long Is­land, New York, south along the coast to cen­tral Florida. L. ir­ro­rata is also found of west of Florida ex­tend­ing along the Gulf Coast to Texas. (Emer­son and Ja­cob­son, 1976; Re­hder, 1981)

• Biogeographic Regions
• nearctic
• atlantic ocean

Habi­tat

Lit­to­rina ir­ro­rata is found in brack­ish water marshes and can be found on marsh grass liv­ing at or above the water level. It is usu­ally as­so­ci­ated with marsh plants in the genus Spi­ratina. (Re­hder, 1981)

• Habitat Regions
• saltwater or marine

• Aquatic Biomes
• coastal
• brackish water

• Wetlands
• marsh

• Other Habitat Features
• estuarine
• intertidal or littoral

Phys­i­cal De­scrip­tion

The shell size of Lit­to­rina ir­ro­rata ranges from 19 mm to about 32 mm high. The shell is thick and broad. The aper­ture is oval in shape. The shell is shaped like an elon­gated cone, being longer than wide. Usu­ally a gray­ish white color, it has tiny, short streaks of red­dish brown on the spi­ral ridges. The shell is also opaque and dull. The col­umella and cal­lus is usu­ally a pale red­dish brown color and the outer lip of the shell is stout, sharp and usu­ally has tiny reg­u­lar grooves on the in­side edge. The in­side of the sharp outer lip is marked with red-brown streaks. The whorls on the shell are al­most flat and it has about 8 to 10 whorls, which grad­u­ally in­crease. The shell may have a green­ish tinge from fine algal growth. (An­drews, 1981; Re­hder, 1981)

• Other Physical Features
• ectothermic
• heterothermic
• bilateral symmetry

• Range length

  19 to 32 mm

  0.75 to 1.26 in

De­vel­op­ment

Noth­ing was doc­u­mented about the species but about the genus. In a closely re­lated species, Lit­to­rina lit­torea, the em­bryo hatches as a veliger larva. The plank­tonic dis­trib­u­tive lar­val stage has been eclipsed. Lit­to­rina ner­i­toides and L. lit­torea eggs are set free singly into the plank­ton hatch­ing as veligers. In L. lit­toralis, the eggs are laid in gelati­nous lay­ers at­tached to the sub­stra­tum, hatch­ing at the crawl­ing stage. In L. sax­atlis, the young merge at the crawl­ing stage as vi­vip­a­rous forms and the young re­main pro­tected within the ma­ter­nal body. In L. an­gulif­era, a veliger larva is ex­pelled. (Pur­chon, 1968)

Re­pro­duc­tion

In­for­ma­tion is not known.

Most of what is known about re­pro­duc­tion is for the genus Lit­to­rina. In some species of Lit­to­rina, the males are not only smaller than the fe­males but their shell has a more elon­gated spire and nar­row aper­ture. In this genus fer­til­iza­tion oc­curs in­ter­nally. The de­liv­ery of the sper­ma­to­zoa into the man­tle city of the fe­male would be ren­dered more ef­fi­cient if the cil­i­ated path­way were ex­tended on to a pro­jec­tion from the body of the male. It is nat­ural, there­fore, that a penis bear­ing a lat­eral cil­i­ated sem­i­nal groove should de­velop on the right side of the male. In many meso­gas­tropods and in the her­maph­ro­dites in which ex­change of sperm can­not be rec­i­p­ro­cal since male and fe­male aper­ture are widely sep­a­rate, the part­ners ori­en­tate them­selves in the same di­rec­tion and the male may the fe­male, set­tle on the right side of the body, and even be car­ried about by her, as in Lit­to­rina spp. Some Lit­to­rina spp. (e.g. L. lit­torea, L. ner­i­toides) have pelagic cap­sules ex­truded from an ovipos­i­tor sit­u­ated near the gen­i­tal aper­ture in a po­si­tion com­pa­ra­ble to that of the penis. Here the cap­sule re­ceives its final form and its outer lay­ers harden the con­tact with sea­wa­ter. The ven­tral wall of the pal­lial oviduct usu­ally fails to de­velop glands and so pro­vides an easy path­way for the sperm. The fe­male L. ir­ro­rata is known to pro­duce float­ing egg cap­sules. (Re­hder, 1981; Wilbur and Vonge, 1964)

• Key Reproductive Features
• sexual
• fertilization
  • internal
• oviparous

Fe­males lay eggs and no parental in­vest­ment is in­volved there­after.

• Parental Investment
• pre-fertilization
  • provisioning

Be­hav­ior

When the tide is out, L. ir­ro­rata with­draws into its shell which may re­main dry and ex­posed to the sun for hours. This snail is usu­ally found on marsh grass where it leaves a mucus trail.

Lit­to­rina ir­ro­rata climbs marsh grasses as water tem­per­a­tures rise. This prob­a­bly serves two func­tions: ob­tain­ing more oxy­gen (since warmer wa­ters have less oxy­gen) and avoid­ing preda­tors. (An­drews, 1981; Henry, et al., 1993)

• Key Behaviors
• motile

Com­mu­ni­ca­tion and Per­cep­tion

The eye struc­ture of Lit­to­rina ir­ro­rata have been de­scribed. Eyes are lat­eral to the cephalic ten­ta­cle. The an­i­mal is able to de­tect light and mo­tion.

Ex­per­i­ments found the snails pre­ferred ver­ti­cal bars over hor­i­zon­tal bars, sug­gest­ing they can see and sense plant stems, where they are usu­ally found in na­ture. An­other study found L. ir­ro­rata pos­i­tively re­ponds to plant odors found in its en­vi­ron­ment. (Duval, et al., 1994; Hamil­ton, 1982; Hamil­ton, et al., 1983)

• Communication Channels
• chemical

• Perception Channels
• visual
• tactile
• chemical

Food Habits

Lit­to­rina ir­ro­rata is an her­bi­vore that feeds mainly on algae. It grazes over the sur­face of marsh grass, usu­ally Spi­ratina species. Mem­bers of the genus Lit­to­rina are known to move in re­sponse to chem­i­cal em­a­na­tion from food at a dis­tance. (An­drews, 1981; Na­tional Oceanic and At­mos­pheric Ad­min­is­tra­tion and En­vi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion Agency, 2004; Pur­chon, 1968; Wilbur and Vonge, 1964)

• Primary Diet
• herbivore
  • algivore
• detritivore

• Plant Foods
• algae

• Other Foods
• detritus
• microbes

Pre­da­tion

Lit­to­rina ir­ro­rata is preyed on by fish, crabs (par­tic­u­larly blue crabs), birds, sea urchins, and small mam­mals. In Con­necti­cut, re­search found di­a­mond­back ter­rap­ins also fed on this species. (Na­tional Oceanic and At­mos­pheric Ad­min­is­tra­tion and En­vi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion Agency, 2004; Sny­der, 2001; Whitelaw, 2000)

• Known Predators

  • fish (Actinopterygii)
  • crabs (Decapoda)
  • blue crabs (Calinectes sapidus)
  • sea urchins (Echinoidea)
  • small mammals (Mammalia)
  • diamondback terrapin (Malaclemys terrapin)

Ecosys­tem Roles

When preda­tors are re­moved, peri­win­kles feed heav­ily and neg­a­tively im­pact Spartina, a marsh plant. (Na­tional Oceanic and At­mos­pheric Ad­min­is­tra­tion and En­vi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion Agency, 2004)

• Ecosystem Impact
• biodegradation

Eco­nomic Im­por­tance for Hu­mans: Pos­i­tive

Peri­win­kles are sen­si­tive to toxic agents and are used for tox­i­col­ogy stud­ies. (Na­tional Oceanic and At­mos­pheric Ad­min­is­tra­tion and En­vi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion Agency, 2004)

• Positive Impacts
• research and education

Con­ser­va­tion Sta­tus

• IUCN Red List

  No special status

• US Federal List

  No special status

• CITES

  No special status

Con­trib­u­tors

Renee Sher­man Mul­crone (ed­i­tor).

Abel Munoz (au­thor), Troy La­dine (ed­i­tor), East Texas Bap­tist Uni­ver­sity.

Ref­er­ences

An­drews, J. 1981. A field guide: Texas shells. Austin: Uni­ver­sity of Texas Press.

Duval, M., A. Calzetta, D. Rittschof. 1994. Be­hav­ioral re­sponses of Lit­to­rina ir­ro­rata (SAY) to wa­ter-borne odors. Jour­nal of Chem­i­cal Ecol­ogy, 20: 3321-3334.

Emer­son, W., M. Ja­cob­son. 1976. Amer­i­can The Mu­seum of Nat­ural His­tory: guide to shells: land, fresh­wa­ter and ma­rine, from Nova Sco­tia to Florida. New York: Al­fred A. Knopf.

Graça, M., S. Newell, R. Kneib. 2000. Graz­ing rates of or­ganic mat­ter and liv­ing fun­gal bio­mass of de­cay­ing Spartina al­terni­flora by three species of salt-marsh in­ver­te­brates. Ma­rine Bi­ol­ogy, 136: 281-289.

Hamil­ton, P. 1982. Be­hav­ioral re­sponses to vi­sual stim­uli by the snail, Lit­to­rina ir­ro­rata. An­i­mal Be­hav­iour, 30: 752-760.

Hamil­ton, P. 1976. Pre­da­tion on Lit­to­rina ir­ro­rata by Call­inectes sapidus (Crus­tacea: Por­tu­nidae). Bul­letin of Ma­rine Sci­ence, 26: 403-409.

Hamil­ton, P., S. Ardiz­zoni, J. Penn. 1983. Eye struc­ture and op­tics in the in­ter­tidal snail Lit­to­rina ir­ro­rata. Jour­nal of Com­par­a­tive Phys­i­ol­ogy: A. Sen­sory neural and be­hav­ioral phys­i­ol­ogy, 152: 435-446.

Henry, R., A. Williams, C. McBride. 1993. Re­sponses of the marsh peri­win­kle, Lit­toraria (lit­to­rina) ir­ro­rata to tem­per­a­ture, salin­ity and des­ic­ca­tion, and the po­ten­tial phys­i­o­log­i­cal re­la­tion­ship to climb­ing be­hav­ior. Ma­rine Be­hav­ior and Phys­i­ol­ogy, 24: 45-54.

Hyman, L. 1967. The in­ver­te­brates. New York: Mc­Graw-Hill Book Com­pany.

Na­tional Oceanic and At­mos­pheric Ad­min­is­tra­tion, , En­vi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion Agency. 2004. "Peri­win­kle (Lit­to­rina ir­ro­rata)" (On-line). N. C. Plant and An­i­mal Species Fact Sheets. Ac­cessed Jan­u­ary 03, 2005 at http://​www.​estuaries.​gov/​pdf/​Periwinkle.​pdf.

Pech­nik, J. 2000. Bi­ol­ogy of the in­ver­te­brates. Boston: Mc­Graw-Hill Book Com­pany.

Pur­chon, R. 1968. The bi­ol­ogy of the Mol­lusca. Lon­don: Perg­a­mon Press.

Re­hder, H. 1981. The Audubon So­ci­ety field guide to North Amer­ica seashells. New York: Al­fred A. Knopf.

Sny­der, R. 2001. "Salt Marsh Mol­luscs" (On-line). Flora and Fauna of North­west Florida. Ac­cessed De­cem­ber 22, 2004 at http://​www.​uwf.​edu/​rsnyder/​ffnwf/​salmars/​saltmollusc.​html.

Whitelaw, D. 2000. "Prey avail­abil­ity for the di­a­mond­back ter­rapin pop­u­la­tion of Mil­ford Marsh, Con­necti­cut" (On-line). Re­search Con­ducted at the Uni­ver­sity of New Haven, Con­necti­cut, 1999. Ac­cessed Jan­u­ary 03, 2005 at http://​journal.​conncoll.​edu/​~dmwhi/milfordpaper.​html.

Wilbur, K., C. Vonge. 1964. Phys­i­ol­ogy of Mol­lusca. New York: Aca­d­e­mic Press.