Size
Acanthochitona species range from small to medium sized animals (Jones and Baxter 1987). Acanthochitona sp. found on Heron Island ranged from 5-6mm in length and 3-4mm in width and needs to be properly examined under a dissecting microscope due to its small size (Figure 1). Other species of Acanthochitona grow up to 10mm (Acanthochitona retrojecta), 54mm (Acanthochitona crinita) and 60mm (Acanthochitona fascicularis) demonstrating that this species, like others in its genus, is a small animal (Jones and Baxter 1987, Kelaher and Cole 2005).
Figure 1: The length and width of Acanthochitona sp, demonstrated by white lines. |