Grazer in the intertidal, from splash zone down to a few meters deep, in crevices or under sones and rocks.
Basionym: Chiton cinereus.
Synonyms: carinatus, marginatus, variegatus…
Above: Chiton cinereus (17) and Chiton fuscatus (18, possible synonym) in T. Pennant: Illustrations of the conchology of Great Britain and Ireland, Edinburgh 1827, plate 35.
« Shell carinated, sculptured with very minute tubercles ; the scales of the lateral membrane very minute and smooth. Length six-eighths of an inch. This species was first discovered by Miss Hutchings off Bantry in Bantry Bay: she gave me one specimen, and I afterwards found a few in Dingle Bay on the southernmost coast of Ireland. » – W. E. Leach: Molluscorum Britanniae Synopsis, London 1852, p.228, for Lepidopleurus carinatus. Above and below: in rocks, 1-3m deep, Cabo de Gata, Almería, Andalucia, S. Spain. 12,4mm.
« Testa […] convexa, distincte carinata, nitida, albida, pallide rufo – et lacteo – nebulosa, lineolis punctisque rufis, fuscisque ornata. Valvulae tenues, omnes sub lente minutissime granulosae… » – R. A. Philippi: Enumeratio molluscorum Siciliae…, Berlin 1836, p.107 for variegatus.
The anterior area.
« Shell ovate, convex, carinated with very minute elevated tubercles, pale reddish brown varied with white. » – W. E. Leach: Op. cit. p.232 for variegatus. – Median plates.
« The colouration of the I. marginatus is so variable that of hundreds of specimens, it is difficult to find two similar, so would it be easy to multiply the varieties indefinitely. » – Dautzenberg & Durouchoux: “Supplément à la faunule malacologique des environs de Saint-Malo”, La Feuille des Jeunes Naturalistes vol. 36, Paris 1906, p.60.
Cabo de Gata. 10,5mm.
