Recluzia
Recluzia is a genus of neustonic sea snails, marine gastropod molluscs in the family Epitoniidae, which also includes the convergently neustonic Janthina. These uncommon, yellow-brownish snails are known principally from the Indo-West Pacific province and northern Indian Ocean, though Recluzia lutea can also be found rarely in the east Pacific and Atlantic oceans.
Despite the various convergent traits between Recluzia and Janthina, they seem to have evolved to their neustonic habit independently, with the former likely being most closely related to Alexania, for their shell characteristics, or Surrepifungium and Epidendrium, for their tissue coloration, while the latter is likely most close to Alora, especially Alora terrenima for its shell's resemblance to early janthinid fossils'. Further differing them from the violet snails, Recluzia have unforked cephalic tentacles, proportionally smaller heads and snouts, teleoconch-parallel protoconch coiling axis, thinner, longer, spineless egg casings, taller shell spires and retained statocysts as adults. Furthermore, they lack epipodia, free-swimming larvae with proto-floats, which instead adhere to the parent's float, one of the protoconch II whorls, having 2.2 instead of 3.2 whorls, shell outer lip sinuses and ianthinin glands.
2 branches of this genus, most-observed first
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Recorded sightings
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geo-referenced records in GBIF, from museums, herbaria and field observers.
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Every page naming Recluzia in the Biodiversity Heritage Library →
This page is assembled live from iNaturalist, GBIF, Wikipedia, the Source Library and the Internet Archive. It is not yet part of the hand-edited codex. iNaturalist taxon 246548.
