Cavolinia tridentata
species of mollusc
Cavolinia tridentata is a species of sea butterflies, floating and swimming sea snails or sea slugs, pelagic marine gastropod molluscs in the family Cavoliniidae. It is a common species and is widespread, being found in European waters, the Atlantic Ocean, the Caribbean Sea, the Gulf of Mexico, the Indian Ocean and in the Pacific Ocean. It lives in the photic zone of the ocean between 0 and 30 m in depth.
Taxonomy
Cavolinia tridentata (Forskål, 1775) was originally described as Anomia tridentata by the Finnish Peter Forsskål in 1775, based on specimens he collected in the Mediterranean Sea as part of the Danish Arabia expedition. In 1791, Danish scientist Peter Christian Abildgaard described the genus Cavolina Abildgaard and included Anomia tridentata in it (as Cavolina natans Abildgaard). A number of other synonyms in the genera Cavolinia, Cleodora and Hyalaea, as well as several forms of this species, have been described.
Description
The maximum recorded shell length is 20 mm.
This species has a large, spherical and brownish shell that is up to 14 mm high, with short lateral spines that are curved downward, a well-separated dorsal apertural lip, and a partially swollen ventral shell. Near the curved apertural margin there are clear transverse striae. The protoconch on the apical spine is straight and pointed.
“Cavolinia tridentata” enters the record as species of mollusc. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Cavolinia, tridentata and species can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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“Cavolinia tridentata” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Cavolinia, tridentata and species provides the most credible route into that argument.
Stable identifiers, scientific names and standards terminology offer the best bridge between this overview and specialist evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 30, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q2943374. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1775 and 1791.
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This entry incorporates text from “Cavolinia tridentata” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.