Cymbulia peronii
Cymbulia peronii is a species of pteropod. It is a pellagic gastropod mollusk. Specifically, it is a sea butterfly part of the Cymbulioidea superfamily.
Name
Cymbulia derives from the Latin cymbula, meaning “small boat,” while peronii honors François Péron, a French naturalist who, after being wounded and imprisoned during the wars against Prussia, studied medicine and natural history and later served as a ship’s doctor aboard Le Géographe on the 1800–1804 expedition to Australia, collaborating extensively with Charles-Alexandre Lesueur.
Distribution
The species inhabits waters concentrating around the extreme south-east United States, the Balearic Islands of Spain, Svalbard, and the offshores of Namibia, sometimes down to about depth, carried by currents. It can withstand temperatures of.
Anatomy
It reaches about in length and has a translucent, bluish body with two wing-like parapods used for slow movement. During development it retains a transparent, cartilaginous internal shell with five dentate ridges that resembles a “glass slipper” or gelatinous crystal-like structure often found washed up on beaches after the animal’s death, sometimes called a "venus' hoof".
Alimentation
Cymbulia peronii often captures prey by having its oral organs open while drifting, and feeds on phytoplankton, mucus, diatoms and other chromists. It is a passive predator, and utilizes hair-like tentacles to sense and detect nearby prey.
Reproduction
Reproduction and breeding takes place temporally from June to August. The animals are protandrous hermaphrodites, meaning male characteristics develop first, with individuals becoming female as they age; this is known as successive hermaphroditism. Reproduction takes place in the planktonic environment through the release of gametes and the development of veliger larvae.