Flamingo Tongue Snail

General information

While alive, the snail has bright orange-yellow rings that are outlined with black markings. While it may appear to be its shell it is not, due to living mantle tissue which usually covers the shell. The mantle flaps can retract, exposing the shell, but this usually happens only when the animal is attacked. The shape is usually elongated and the dorsum shows a thick transversal ridge. The dorsum surface is smooth and shiny and may be white or orange, with no markings at all except a longitudinal white or cream band. The base and the interior of Cyphoma gibbosum shell is white or pinkish, with a wide aperture. These type of snails are called gastropods, meaning stomach-footed, because they eat with their feet. They feed by browsing on the living tissues of the soft and stony corals on which it lives off of, common prey on sea fans and gorgonia. Adult female Cyphoma gibbosum attach eggs to coral which they have recently fed upon. After roughly a week and a half, the larvae hatch.