Siphonaria pectinata
Siphonaria pectinata, common name the striped false limpet, is a species of air-breathing sea snail or false limpet, a marine heterobranch gastropod mollusc in the family Siphonariidae.
Taxonomic status
Siphonaria pectinata was thought to be a widespread species with an Amphiatlantic distribution. A 2015 molecular study clearly distinguished three lineages with no apparent connectivity. These lineages are now treated as three separate species. They are named as S. pectinata, restricted to the eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean, S. naufragum from Florida and the Gulf of Mexico and S. placentula Menke, 1853 from the Cape Verde Archipelago.The complete nucleotide sequence of the mitochondrial genome of Siphonaria pectinata has been available since 2008. As a result of this study, Grande et al. proposed that this species should be recognized as a member of the Opisthobranchia rather than the Pulmonata. It is now known that the Pulmonata are actually a group within the former Opisthobranchia and the term Heterobranchia is usually used to clarify this relationship.