APHOTOMARINE

An educational resource dedicated mainly to the photography
and diversity of marine life that can be found in coastal waters
and intertidal areas of Great Britain and Ireland by David Fenwick.

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Brachiopod or lamp shell
Gwynia capsula
- inside valve of Striarca lactea,
the Milky ark shell 1

Brachiopod or lamp shell
Gwynia capsula
- inside valve of Striarca lactea,
the Milky ark shell 2

Brachiopod or lamp shell
Gwynia capsula
- inside valve of Striarca lactea,
the Milky ark shell 3

Brachiopod or lamp shell
Gwynia capsula
- inside valve of Striarca lactea,
the Milky ark shell 4

The specimens above are the copyright of and were photographed by Hans Hillewaert. The specimens displayed were found inside a valve of Striarca lactea, collected from the Belgian part of the North Sea.

Shell size: Max. length 1.5 mm.
Depth range: 15-46 m.
Habitat: Found attached to rock, stones and shells.
Distribution: The north coast of Ireland, Belfast Lough, Dublin Bay, north Wales, Cornwall, Dorset, Channel Islands and Western Approaches. Elsewhere, northern France.

Ref. and more info. in:
British Brachiopods (Synopses of
the British fauna No. 17) by
Howard, C.; Brunton, C. and
Curry, G.B..

Local to the author the species was found by Lisa Curtis in Land's End MCZ off Porthgwarra, Cornwall, 02.03.2014, during a Natural England Marine Monitoring Survey. On the NBN Atlas the species has also been recorded from the Bristol Channel, Menai Strait and the eastern part of the English Channel.

Original name:
Terebratula capsula Jeffreys, 1859
Synonymised names:
Terebratula capsula Jeffreys, 1859
Ref: WoRMS

The image files here are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license, they.are used here to display brachiopods that may be found off the coast of Great Britain and Ireland, and to increase the number of species displays of the phylum on APHOTOMARINE. In time it is hoped more UK material will be obtained and photographed by the author but brachiopods are largely deep water species so are not commonly collected, which is why outsourcing of images is needed for educational purposes and I hereby thank the provider.

The main objective of this website is in furthering environmental awareness and education through the medium of photography. To increase awareness and access to the wildlife of the region and help

people find and identify it. Sometimes the difference between species is obvious but many species can only be determined by observing microscopic characteristics that are specific to any one species.