About Agaronia testacea (Lamarck, 1811)
Agaronia testacea (Lamarck, 1811) has a muscular foot it uses to crawl along the ocean floor, plus two sensory tentacles. One eye sits at the base of each tentacle. The snail’s mouth is located at the center of its foot. It feeds on algae and other small organisms, scraping these from rocks and other surfaces with a specialized feeding structure called a radula. A shell protects the soft, fleshy body of A. testacea. The shell length ranges from 25 mm to 66 mm. The shell has a conical shape with a pointed apex, also called a spire. The outer surface of the shell is smooth and shiny, and is colored cream or light brown with dark brown or black spots or streaks. The interior of the shell is white or pale yellow. This species occurs in shallow waters along the western coast of North America, from Alaska to Baja California. It lives in rocky intertidal habitats, where it clings to rocks and other hard surfaces. It can also be found in the Pacific Ocean from the Gulf of California to Peru. Fossils of Agaronia testacea have been found in Pliocene strata in Costa Rica, Miocene strata in Colombia, Panama, and Venezuela, and Quaternary strata in Mexico.
