Strombus vittatus
Encyclopedia
Doxander vittatus, common name : the Vitate Conch, 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 medium-sized 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...

 Strombidae
Strombidae
Strombidae, commonly known as the true conchs, is a taxonomic family of medium-sized to very large sea snails, marine gastropod mollusks in the superfamily Stromboidea....

, the true conchs.

There are three subspecies :
  • Doxander vittatus apicatus (Man in 't Veld & Visser, 1993)
  • Doxander vittatus entropi (Man in 't Veld & Visser, 1993)
  • Doxander vittatus vittatus (Linnaeus, 1758)

Distribution

This species occurs in the Indo-Pacific
Indo-Pacific
The Indo-Pacific is a biogeographic region of the Earth's seas, comprising the tropical waters of the Indian Ocean, the western and central Pacific Ocean, and the seas connecting the two in the general area of Indonesia...

 along Fiji
Fiji
Fiji , officially the Republic of Fiji , is an island nation in Melanesia in the South Pacific Ocean about northeast of New Zealand's North Island...

 and in the South China Sea
South China Sea
The South China Sea is a marginal sea that is part of the Pacific Ocean, encompassing an area from the Singapore and Malacca Straits to the Strait of Taiwan of around...

.

Phylogeny

In 2006, Latiolais et al. proposed a cladogram
Cladogram
A cladogram is a diagram used in cladistics which shows ancestral relations between organisms, to represent the evolutionary tree of life. Although traditionally such cladograms were generated largely on the basis of morphological characters, DNA and RNA sequencing data and computational...

 (a tree of descent) that attempts to show the phylogenetic relationships of 34 species within the family Strombidae. The authors analysed 31 species that used to belong to the genus Strombus
Strombus
Strombus, common name the true conchs, is a genus of medium to large sea snails with an operculum, marine gastropod mollusks in the family Strombidae, the true conchs and their immediate relatives....

including Strombus vittatus, and three species in the allied genus Lambis
Lambis
Lambis is a genus of large sea snails sometimes known as spider conchs, marine gastropod mollusks in the family Strombidae, the true conch family...

. The cladogram was based on DNA
DNA
Deoxyribonucleic acid is a nucleic acid that contains the genetic instructions used in the development and functioning of all known living organisms . The DNA segments that carry this genetic information are called genes, but other DNA sequences have structural purposes, or are involved in...

 sequences of both nuclear histone H3
Histone H3
Histone H3 is one of the five main histone proteins involved in the structure of chromatin in eukaryotic cells. Featuring a main globular domain and a long N-terminal tail, H3 is involved with the structure of the nucleosomes of the 'beads on a string' structure...

 and mitochondrial cytochrome-c oxidase I
Main subunit of cytochrome c oxidase
Cytochrome C and Quinol oxidase polypeptide I is main subunit of cytochrome c oxidase complex.Cytochrome c oxidase is a key enzyme in aerobic metabolism. Proton pumping heme-copper oxidases represent the terminal, energy-transfer enzymes of respiratory chains in prokaryotes and eukaryotes...

 (COI) protein-coding gene
Gene
A gene is a molecular unit of heredity of a living organism. It is a name given to some stretches of DNA and RNA that code for a type of protein or for an RNA chain that has a function in the organism. Living beings depend on genes, as they specify all proteins and functional RNA chains...

 regions.

In this proposed phylogeny, Strombus vittatus and Strombus canarium
Strombus canarium
Laevistrombus canarium, commonly known as the dog conch and still better known under its synonym Strombus canarium, is a species of edible sea snail, a marine gastropod mollusk in the family Strombidae, the true conchs. An Indo-Pacific species, L. canarium lives on mud and sandy bottoms,...

are closely related and appear to share a common ancestor.

External links

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