Natica arachnoidea, common name : the spider moon snail, 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 predatory sea snail

Sea snail

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

, a marine

Marine (ocean)

Marine is an umbrella term. As an adjective it is usually applicable to things relating to the sea or ocean, such as marine biology, marine ecology and marine geology...

 gastropod mollusk 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...

 Naticidae

Naticidae

Naticidae, common name the moon snails, is a family of minute to large-sized predatory sea snails, marine gastropod molluscs in the clade Littorinimorpha.Naticidae is the only family in the superfamily Naticoidea....

, the moon snails.

Description

The size of an adult shell varies between 13 mm and 26 mm.

Distribution

This marine species is distributed in the Indian Ocean along the Mascarene Basin and Mozambique

Mozambique

Mozambique, officially the Republic of Mozambique , is a country in southeastern Africa bordered by the Indian Ocean to the east, Tanzania to the north, Malawi and Zambia to the northwest, Zimbabwe to the west and Swaziland and South Africa to the southwest...

; the Andamans; in the Western Pacific Ocean and Australia.

External links

• Gastropods.com : Natica arachnoidea; accessed : 15 April 2011