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Gastropod

Painted Top Shell

Calliostoma zizyphinum

Calliostoma zizyphinum (Linnaeus, 1758) · Calliostomatidae WoRMS 141767

Reference photos

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A slightly glossy, regularly conical shell with straight sides and a flat base, like a traditional spinning top. Up to 12 to 13 whorls with regular spiral grooves, yellowish, pale pink or violet with streaks and blotches, and no open navel beneath.

Depth

Extreme low water down to 300 m

Size

Shell up to 3 cm (30 mm) high and 3 cm broad

Habitat

Seaweed-covered rocky shores, under rocks, in crevices and on large algae such as Laminaria

Behaviour

Wipes mucus over its own shell twice every 24 hours and eats the micro-organisms and particles it traps, about 20% of its food

Diet

I eat

  • Micro-algae and other micro-organisms brushed off rocks and stones with the radula
  • Micro-organisms and waterborne particles trapped in the mucus it wipes over its own shell, about a fifth of its food

Where you'd find it

Found around most of Britain and Ireland, though less often in the waters west of Ireland.

ChannelCeltic SeaNorth SeaIrish SeaW of IrelandW of Scotland
Often seenNow and thenWhere PEBL filmsBased on marine survey records (OBIS). Blank seas can mean nobody has looked there, not that the animal is absent.

Sources

Open-access references behind this page. Every statement on this page was read out of one of them; anything that could not be traced to a source was taken off the page rather than left standing. Each link was checked on the date shown, and confirmed then to be about this species.

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