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Pteropoda (common name pteropods, from the Greek meaning "wing-foot") are specialized free-swimming pelagic sea snails and sea slugs, marine opisthobranch gastropods.Most live in the top 10 m of the ocean and are less than 1 cm long.
Most pteropods have some form of calcified shell, although it is often very light, even translucent. [3] The sea butterflies include some of the world's most abundant gastropod species; [1] as their large numbers are an essential part of the ocean food chain, they are a significant contributor to the oceanic carbon cycle. [3] [4]
Clionoidea is a taxonomic superfamily of sea slugs, specifically naked (i.e. unshelled) pteropods, marine opisthobranch gastropod mollusks in the clade Gymnosomata. [1] They are sometimes called "sea angels" or "naked sea butterflies" along with the other superfamily in the Gymnosomata.
Etymological meaning of the generic name Limacina is "snail-like". [4] As pelagic marine gastropods, Limacina swim by flapping their parapodia, inspiring the common name sea butterflies. Sea butterflies are part of the clade Thecosomata. Sea angels, similar to Limacina, are in the order Gymnosomata. Both of these orders are still referred to as ...
Sea angels were previously considered to be pteropods. Sea angels are also sometimes known as "sea butterflies" but this is potentially misleading because the family Clionidae is just one of the families within this clade, and the term "sea butterfly" is also applied to the shelled Thecosomata .
Arctic food webs are considered simple, meaning there are few steps in the food chain from small organisms to larger predators. For example, pteropods are "a key prey item of a number of higher predators – larger plankton, fish, seabirds, whales". [203]
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Pteropods are severely affected because increasing acidification levels have steadily decreased the amount of water supersaturated with carbonate which is needed for the aragonite creation. [ 108 ] When the shell of a pteropod was immersed in water with a pH level the ocean is projected to reach by the year 2100, the shell almost completely ...