Sea hare
| Sea hares | |
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| Aplysia californica, a typical sea hare displaying inking behavior | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Mollusca |
| Class: | Gastropoda |
| (unranked): |
clade Heterobranchia clade Euthyneura clade Euopisthobranchia clade Aplysiomorpha P. Fischer, 1883 |
| Families | |
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The clade Aplysiomorpha, commonly known as sea hares (Aplysia species and related genera), are medium-sized to very large opisthobranch gastropod molluscs with a soft internal shell made of protein. These are marine gastropod molluscs in the superfamilies Aplysioidea and Akeroidea.
The common name "sea hare" is direct translation from Latin lepus marinus, as the animal's existence was known in Roman times. The name derives from their rounded shape and from the two long rhinophores that project upwards from their heads and that somewhat resemble the ears of a hare.
Many older textbooks and websites refer to this suborder as Anaspidea. The original author Paul Henri Fischer described the taxon Anaspidea at unspecified rank above family. In 1925 Johannes Thiele established the taxon Anaspidea as a suborder.
However, since the taxon Anaspidea was not based on an existing genus, this name is no longer available according to the rules of the ICZN. Anaspidea has been replaced in the new Taxonomy of the Gastropoda (Bouchet & Rocroi, 2005) by the clade Aplysiomorpha.
The scientific name for the order in which they used to be classified, the Anaspidea, is derived from the Greek for "without a shield" and refers to the lack of the characteristic head shield found in the cephalaspidean opisthobranchs. Many anaspideans have only a thin, internal and much-reduced shell with a small mantle cavity; some have no shell at all. All species have a radula and gizzard plates.
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Wikipedia