Pneumodermopsis (Pneumodermopsis) brachialis Minichev, 1976
Overview
This is a relatively large, naked pelagic snail, up to 1.5 cm long, with a mainly transparent body and visceral mass is seen through the body wall. The skin has chromatophores. There is a median sucker arm with an enlarged top sucker, and two lateral arms, each with 12 suckers. A posterior gill is present. The posterior footlobe is short. It is a rather quick swimmer that hunts shelled pteropods as food. It lives in the Antarctic Ocean (Pneumodermopsis brachialis).
Taxonomic Description
The body is rounded oval with two circular folds. The lateral gills is present (in the original description it was stated to be "absent, in the area where it could be expected the skin is thickened and pigmented"). The posterior gill is present. The posterior footlobe is short, the lateral lobes are broader. The lateral arms have 12 stalked suckers each. The median arm has 5 suckers, the top sucker is larger than the other four. The Pneumodermopsis brachialis radula formula is 4-1-4, there are 22 transverse rows. The lateral teeth are hook-shaped. The median teeth are tricuspoid with an extremely small median cusp. The hook sacs are long, in the original illustration there are about 40 hooks in each sac.
Body length up to 1.2 mm
Juveniles
A special description is not available.
Reproduction
This species is a protandric hermaphrodite.
Ecology
This species is a carnivore.
Distribution
This species is found in the Antarctic Ocean.
Types
Pneumodermopsis brachialis Minichev, 1976: 104, fig. 2.
Holotype: in Zoological Institute of the Acad. of Sciences of the USSR in Leningrad.
Type locality: COBE stat. 94, 40°45.5'S 132°44.2'E 3 May, 1956.