Melo (gastropod)

Melo
	A shell of the Indian volute, Melo melo surrounded by a group of pearls from that species
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Mollusca
Class:	Gastropoda
Subclass:	Caenogastropoda
Order:	Neogastropoda
Family:	Volutidae
Tribe:	Melonini
Genus:	Melo; Broderip in Sowerby I, 1826

Melo is a genus of extremely large sea snails, marine gastropod molluscs in the family Volutidae, the volutes. Because of their huge ovate shells, these snails are often known as "bailers" (the shells were sometimes used for bailing out canoes) or "melons" (because the shell resembles that fruit).

Species in this genus sometimes produce large pearls. The image in the taxobox shows a group of these pearls with a shell of the species Melo melo.

Species

Species in the genus Melo include:

Melo aethiopica (Linnaeus, 1758) Crowned baler
Melo amphora, (Lightfoot, 1786) Giant baler
Melo ashmorensis Morrison, 2005
Melo diadema
Melo broderipii (Griffith, E. & E. Pidgeon, 1834)
Melo georginae (Griffith, E. & E. Pidgeon, 1834)
Melo melo (Lightfoot, 1786) Indian volute
Melo miltonis (Griffith, E. & E. Pidgeon, 1834) Milton's melon or Southern bailer
Melo nautica (Lamarck, 1822)
Melo umbilicatus (Broderip in Sowerby, 1826) Heavy baler or umbilicate melon

Gallery

Video of a live individual of Melo amphora crawling at low tide

A live individual of what is probably Melo umbilicatus

A shell of Melo aethiopica

A shell of Melo melo

A juvenile shell of what is probably Melo amphora

Ecology

Parasites of Melo sp. include trematode Lophotaspis macdonaldi.^[2]

References

^ Broderip W. (1826). In: Sowerby, Gen. Shells, (28).
^ Alevs, Philippe V.; Vieira, Fabiano M.; Santos, Cláudia P.; Scholz, Tomáš; Luque, José L. (2015-02-12). "A Checklist of the Aspidogastrea (Platyhelminthes: Trematoda) of the World". Zootaxa. 3918 (3): 339–96. doi:10.11646/zootaxa.3918.3.2. ISSN 1175-5334. PMID 25781098.

gastropods.com info

External links

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[1] Broderip W. (1826). In: Sowerby, Gen. Shells, (28).

[2] Alevs, Philippe V.; Vieira, Fabiano M.; Santos, Cláudia P.; Scholz, Tomáš; Luque, José L. (2015-02-12). "A Checklist of the Aspidogastrea (Platyhelminthes: Trematoda) of the World". Zootaxa. 3918 (3): 339–96. doi:10.11646/zootaxa.3918.3.2. ISSN 1175-5334. PMID 25781098.

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