| Bathyacmaea nipponica Temporal range:
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| (unranked): | clade Patellogastropoda
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| Species: | B. nipponica
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| Binomial name | |
| Bathyacmaea nipponica Okutani, Fujikura & Sasaki, 1992
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Bathyacmaea nipponica is a species of very small (adults are typically about 6 mm in length), deep-sea limpet, a marine gastropod mollusk in the family Pectinodontidae. [1]
This species inhabits the dark, chemosynthesis-based marine communities of ocean vents and cold seeps near Japan (e.g. the Okinawa Trough).
It is distinct from other true limpets in the following ways, among others: its intestine runs through its ventricle, it has a pair of radular "teeth" with long shafts, and its statocysts are isolated from the pleural ganglia and pedal ganglia. It also has a ctenidium rather than the usual set of circumpallial gills, lacks osphradia, and does not have even rudimentary eyes.
For these reasons, along with a comparison of the development of the shell at the microscopic level, it has been argued that B. nipponica is not closely related to the Patelloidea or the Neolepetopsidae as one might expect based on simple morphological characteristics and similarity of appearance. This species has a surprising number of traits in common with the Acmaeidae, however, suggesting a possible close connection with that family rather than the other true limpet families.[2]