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Slipper Limpet

Image Credit: GBNNSS

Status: Not yet established

Habitat: Marine

Threat: Habitat alteration

Description

  • snail with a reduced apical spire or apex, and large aperture with distinctive inner shell
  • smooth shell with irregular growth lines
  • commonly found attached to others in curved chains of up to 12 snails.

Information

  • competes with native bivalve molluscs for space and food, reproduces very rapidly and consequently blankets whole areas of the sea floor
  • believed to be moved primarily via the oyster trade, also by attaching itself to boat hulls.

Consequence

  • poses serious threat to the oyster industry
  • filters out plankton; its deposits of shell and waste particles change the texture and nature of sediment
  • can smother other organisms, reducing biodiversity and plant abundance.

Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II

21 April 1926 to 8 September 2022