Posted: Aug 15 2011
Echinolittorina meleagris (Potiez and Michaud, 1838) White-spot Periwinkle
Florida Echinolittorina (subgenus Fossarilittorina)
by Marlo F. Krisberg
August 2011
My classification and treatment relies upon the following monograph:
Reid, D.G., 2009. The genus Echinolittorina Habe, 1956 (Gastropoda: Littorinidae) in the western Atlantic Ocean. Zootaxa 2184: 1-103. Aug. 6.
Dr. Reid has grouped the 10 known living Littorinids in the western Atlantic within the genus Echinolittorina and, within the genus, separated the 10 into four subgenera as follows:
Fossarilittorina Rosewater, 1981
E. meleagris (Beck in Potiez & Michaud, 1838)
E. mespillum (Mühlfeld, 1824)
Lineolittorina Reid, 2009 (new subgenus)
E. lineolata (d'Orbigny, 1840)
Amerolittorina Reid, 2009 (new subgenus)
E. ziczac (Gmelin, 1791)
E. jamaicensis (C. B. Adams, 1850)
E. interrupta (C. B. Adams in Philippi, 1847)
E. placida Reid, 2009 (new species)
E. angustior (Mörch, 1876)
Echinolittorina Habe, 1956
E. tuberculata (Menke, 1828)
E. vermeiji (Bandel & Kadolsky, 1982)
8/16/11 From Phil Poland, field worker extraordinaire during last decades of the 20th century in Florida and ardent collector to provide marine research material:
"When I collected E. meleagris on the east coast of Florida in the 1970s and 1980s, prior to the invasion of what we then called N. interrupta (now E. placida Reid, 2009), the meleagris were common in and around barnacles on jetties and other hard surfaces. These surfaces then became infested with stunted interrupta and the meleagris were either displaced or lost among the far greater numbers of interrupta. I found E. meleagris common northward to St. Augustine."
