acterized by its very small size, and by about a dozen obliquely set, spiral bright-red lines. The top of the whorls may be solid red and with large, opaque-white spots. Umbilicus a mere chink-like depression. Operculum calcareous and white. Tricolia variegata Carpenter is the same (not Lamarck). Common among weeds in tidepools and among kelps offshore.
Family Neritidae
Genus Nerita Linné 1758
Plate 4a
Southeast Florida, Bermuda and the West Indies.
3⁄4 to 11⁄2 inches in length; grayish yellow with zigzags of black and red. Characterized by the blood-red parietal area which bears 1 or 2 whitish teeth. Operculum: underside coral-pink; one half of outer side smooth and dark-orange, other half smoothish or papillose and brownish green. Very abundant along the rocky shores facing the open ocean. It is a popular souvenir.
Plate 4b
South 3⁄4 of Florida and the West Indies. Bermuda.
3⁄4 to 1 inch in length; dirty-white with irregular spots of black and red arranged in spiral rows; spirally grooved; outer lip spotted with red, white and black on margin. Parietal area slightly convex, white to yellowish and with 4 (rarely 5) strong teeth. Operculum: exterior brownish gray, finely papillose and slightly concave. Commonly associated with N. peloronta. Nerita variegata Karsten (1789) is invalid, since it appears in a non-binomial work.
Plate 4f
Florida to Texas, the West Indies and Bermuda.
3⁄4 inch in length, irregularly spotted with black and white, sometimes heavily mottled; coarsely sculptured with spiral cords of varying sizes. Parietal area concave, bluish-white and bearing 2 weak teeth in the middle. Operculum: exterior slightly convex, black in color. Commonly congregate in large numbers under rocks at low tide. Rare in northern Florida. Do not confuse with N. fulgurans Gmelin whose operculum is bluish white to yellowish gray, not black.
