Newfound 'Spider-Man' Snail Is an expert web slinger

Date: April 5 2017
Source: PeerJ/Live Science

A newfound species of colorful marine snail slings nets of mucus like superhero web slinger Spider-Man and is "kind of cute," according to the scientist who found and described it.


The tiny sea creature belongs to a group known as worm snails — soft-bodied mollusks encased in tubular shells with an opening at one end. Their hatchlings crawl freely, but they soon attach their shells permanently to hard substrates — like corals or rocks — and are entirely stationary as adults.
Researchers found the new species attached to a shipwreck that had been designated as an artificial coral reef in the Florida Keys. Though the worm snails were fixed firmly in place, they likely originated far away and are not native to that part of the Atlantic Ocean, scientists wrote in a new study.

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