Neritina souverbiana var. hellvillensis Crosse, 1881
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Smaragdia souverbiana is a small (<2mm aperture) seagrass associated Nerite. Its shell is sand to green in colour, with distinctive thin black bands with embedded clear diamonds across the whorls. It is commonly found in seagrasses, where it is believed to feed directly on seagrass cells (rather than algaeepiphyte like many other seagrass associated gastropods). Feces examined from specimens collected from the intertidal zone contained both seagrass and epiphyte material.[2]
Banded form
This species is distributed in the Indian Ocean along Madagascar and the Aldabra Atoll, and in the Mediterranean Sea. It is also widely distributed throughout the Indo-Pacific, with records of its collection along the east (as far south as southern New South Wales) and west coasts for Australia, through Indonesia and Malaysia to the Philippines and New Caledonia.[1]
Rossini, Renée Anne; Rueda, José Luis; Tibbetts, Ian Rowland (1 May 2014). "Feeding ecology of the seagrass-grazing nerite Smaragdia souverbiana (Montrouzier, 1863) in subtropical seagrass beds of eastern Australia". Journal of Molluscan Studies. 80 (2): 139–147. doi:10.1093/mollus/eyu003. ISSN0260-1230.
Dautzenberg, Ph. (1929). Mollusques testacés marins de Madagascar. Faune des Colonies Francaises, Tome III
Fischer-Piette, E. & Vukadinovic, D. (1973). Sur les Mollusques Fluviatiles de Madagascar. Malacologia. 12: 339–378.
Taylor, J.D. (1973). Provisional list of the mollusca of Aldabra Atoll
Fischer-Piette, E. & Vukadinovic, D. (1974). Les Mollusques terrestres des Iles Comores. Mémoires du Museum National d'Histoire Naturelle, Nouvelle Série, Série A, Zoologie, 84: 1-76, 1 plate. Paris.
Gofas, S.; Le Renard, J.; Bouchet, P. (2001). Mollusca, in: Costello, M.J. et al. (Ed.) (2001). European register of marine species: a check-list of the marine species in Europe and a bibliography of guides to their identification. Collection Patrimoines Naturels, 50: pp.180–213
Streftaris, N.; Zenetos, A.; Papathanassiou, E. (2005). Globalisation in marine ecosystems: the story of non-indigenous marine species across European seas. Oceanogr. Mar. Biol. Annu. Rev. 43: 419–453
Fowler, O. (2016). Seashells of the Kenya coast. ConchBooks: Harxheim. Pp.1–170.
