Critically Endangered
White abalone
Haliotis sorenseni
White abalone is a gastropod in the family Haliotidae (order Lepetellida) — Haliotis sorenseni, recorded as Critically Endangered.
Appearance
The white abalone, scientific name White abalone, is a large sea snail, a marine gastropod mollusk in the family Haliotidae, the abalone.
Range and habitat
Historically the white abalone ranged from Point Conception, California, to Baja California, Mexico, and was found especially on the offshore islands. In the most northerly part of the California range, white abalone were reported as being more common along the mainland coast. Even so, in the middle portion of the California range, they were noted to occur more frequently at the offshore islands, especially San Clemente and Santa Catalina Islands.
Pins are Wikidata “endemic to” fields. Orange dots, when present, are GBIF occurrence tiles — survey bias included.
Breeding
As a broadcast spawning gastropod, white abalone reproduce by releasing their eggs and sperm into the surrounding water. If fertilized, the eggs hatch after only one day, but sperm is required in order for an egg to be fertilized.
In crisis
The white abalone is an endangered species in the United States. It may now have the smallest population of all eight of the abalone species on the west coast of North America.
White abalone is Critically Endangered on this catalog because that is the IUCN category stored on Wikidata. Confirm the official criteria and any later count on iucnredlist.org.
Sources
Written for this catalog from the English Wikipedia article on White abalone, Wikidata item Q3096135. Family and order context is original field-guide writing about the group, not a copied assessment of this one species. Wikipedia text is CC BY-SA. Not an IUCN assessment. Counts, when quoted, can change — confirm them on the recovery programme and on iucnredlist.org.
