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Browse the 1966 Encyclopaedia of New Zealand
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Graphic: An Encyclopaedia of New Zealand 1966.

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This information was published in 1966 in An Encyclopaedia of New Zealand, edited by A. H. McLintock. It has not been corrected and will not be updated.

Up-to-date information can be found elsewhere in Te Ara.

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SNAIL, MUD

(Amphibola crenata).

About the size of a garden snail, this is the shellfish seen scattered in thousands over upper tidal mud flats. It feeds by sifting organic particles from the mud. The species is remarkable in that it breathes by means of a primitive lung, not gills. It is the only air-breathing marine snail possessing an operculum. The Maoris esteemed this shellfish as food and called it titiko.

by Arthur William Baden Powell, Assistant Director, Auckland Institute and Museum.

Co-creator

Arthur William Baden Powell, Assistant Director, Auckland Institute and Museum.