The Pitted Baby Bubble, Japonactaeon punctostriatus (C.B. Adams, 1840), is a local microsnail that reaches about 1/5 inch in size. The shell of the living snail is transparent, becoming opaque after the animal dies, and is ornamented with spiral rows of pin-holes, which are present only on the abapical (“top”) part of the whorls. The juvenile live snail illustrated in the photo on the right was collected on September 15, 2014, by Florida Gulf Coast University (FGCU) student Thomas Behmer on from a shoal grass (Halodule wrightii) bed, between Iona Point and Shell Point Retirement Community, west end of the Caloosahatchee River estuary, in Fort Myers. The shape of the whorl shoulders in the shell of this living specimen suggests it could belong in a separate species. (Shell Museum staff regularly assists FGCU faculty and students with identification of mollusks.)
Photos on left by José H. Leal. Photo on the right (by Thomas Behmer) may represent a closely related but separate species.