Gorgonia eating snail??? With legs???

[flyyyguy]

This came in to my LFS.

I thought it was interesting so I took some pics.

Im thinking predatory snail or limpet of some kind...but the two "legs" for lack of a better term that the next couple pics shows I havent seen before.

What is it?? Its not the gorgonias friend Im pretty sure. Its not exactly tiny...prolly 1/4"

 

[mhills16]

its a cowrie of some sort....

 

[greenbean36191]

Nope, not a cowrie. It's an ovulid, though I don't know which species. As you suspected though, it's not the gorgonian's friend. These guys are obligate predators of corals, with a lot of them being gorgonian specialists.

 

[flyyyguy]

Thanks

Greenbean, do you knwo what those two legs/arms/scrapers whatever they are are called and what they do??

 

[pagojoe]

The "legs" are its tentacles, or "feelers." I think it's Simnialena uniplicata. The shell takes on the color of the gorgonian that the animal feeds on, with red ones being found on red gorgonians and yellow ones found on red gorgonians, etc. Here's an example:

http://www.jaxshells.org/0531xx.htm

Cheers,



Don