Kingdom Animalia Scientific name Coralliophilinae Higher classification Muricidae | Superfamily Muricoidea Phylum Mollusca Rank Subfamily | |
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Lower classifications Coralliophila, Latiaxis, Magilus antiquus, Babelomurex wormaldi | ||
Coralliophilinae is a taxonomic group, a subfamily of about 200–250 sea snails, marine gastropod mollusks commonly known as the coral snails or coral shells. This is a subfamily within the very large family Muricidae, the murex or rock snails.
Contents
According to the taxonomy of the Gastropoda (Bouchet & Rocroi, 2005), this group is considered to be a subfamily, the Coralliophilinae, of the family Muricidae. Prior to the taxonomy of the Gastropoda (Bouchet & Rocroi, 2005), the Coralliophilinae was recognized as a distinct family the Coralliophilidae. The subfamily Coralliophilinae is monophyletic, as confirmed by genetic research with molecular markers.
Distribution and habitat
The coral snails are coral dwellers that occur worldwide in temperate and tropical seas. They can be found in very diverse places such as the mid-Atlantic seamounts, the Canary Islands, the deep water coral banks in the Mediterranean, from the Florida Keys to Brazil, the Indo-Pacific Region, the southwest Pacific, the Austral Islands (South Pacific). Such a dispersal of the subfamily can be attributed to oceanic currents and planktotrophic larval development.
These snails are specialist feeders, feeding exclusively on anthozoans by boring into them. A few live between soft corals and anemones and use their long and extensible proboscis to ingest the soft tissue. Some feed on sea fans.
Genera
Genera within the subfamily Coralliophilinae include:
Within this subfamily, the systematics at species level is problematic as many adult species show broad intraspecific morphologic variability that also depends on the substrate they live. The morphology of the protoconch is usually very helpful as a taxonomic character.