Description ⁴

Medium to large, rare, chiton, 45 to 60mm long, 31 to 40mm wide. Plates broad and low and the skirt/girdle is wide and dark reddy-brown in colour. The skirt/girdle is covered with short bristles, there are clusters of longer bristles on the skirt/girdle at the corners of the plates and twice as many clusters around the outer circumference as well. The plates have single radial beaded ridges. The off-white/pale green plates have short wavy pale purple streaks from the front edge.

Distribution ⁴

Intertidal on exposed rocky shores. North Island, South Island, Snares Islands and Chatham Islands

Synonyms ⁴

Acanthopleura ciliata (Hutton, 1873)
Acanthopleura complexa (Hutton, 1872)
Chiton biramosus (Quoy and Gaimard, 1835) (original combination)
Tonicia corticata (Hutton, 1872)

http://www.marinespecies.org/aphia.php?p=taxdetails&id=848054

References ⁴

New Zealand Mollusca, Marine Land and Freshwater Shells, A W B Powell, 1979

Sources and Credits

1. (c) Tony Wills, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC), uploaded by Tony Wills
2. (c) Tony Wills, some rights reserved (CC BY-SA), uploaded by Tony Wills
3. Tony Wills, no known copyright restrictions (public domain), uploaded by Tony Wills
4. (c) Tony Wills, some rights reserved (CC BY-SA)

More Info

• iNaturalist NZ taxon page
• Animal Diversity Web
• Biodiversity Heritage Library
• BOLD Systems BIN search
• Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF)
• SeaLifeBase
• World Register of Marine Species

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