Feeding and reproductive biology of Babylonia spirata (Linnaeus, 1758) in the northern Oman Sea

In this research, spiral babylon (Babylonia spirata L.) specimens were collected by special circular traps from different depths up to 60 m based on the snail distribution from September 2021 to May 2022. The snails were sampled monthly and transferred to the laboratory after counting and washing. The examination of stomach contents showed that this snail species had a scavenger diet and mostly fed on animal corpses including oysters, clams, squids, and shrimps, as well as fish such as Leiognathidae. The length at sexual maturity for females and males were 31.1 and 32.5 mm, respectively. B. spirata had a reproductive potential in all seasons and therefore, this is a gonochronic species with internal fertilization. The females had two spawning peaks with the weakest in autumn and the strongest in winter. Also, the main spawning season for this species was estimated from November to March 2022. At the breeding season, the majority of the stomachs were empty with poor feeding.