Sea butterflies are tiny, free-swimming sea snails that spend their entire lives adrift in open ocean waters rather than crawling on the seafloor like most snails. Their foot has evolved into a pair of wing-like flaps that beat through the water in a fluttering motion, giving the group its common name and letting them swim continuously through the water column. Most species carry a thin, often nearly transparent shell of calcium carbonate, which makes them especially vulnerable to the more acidic ocean conditions caused by rising carbon dioxide levels.
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1. Wikipedia: Sea butterfly
Wikipedialead paragraph (habitat realm), EntityId 322815
The Thecosomata (collective/plural: thecosomes, from Ancient Greek θήκη (thḗkē), meaning "case", and σῶμα (sôma), meaning "body"), or sea butterflies, are a taxonomic suborder of small, pelagic, free-swimming
article text (diet), EntityId 322815
Being generally herbivorous, and mostly passive plankton-feeders, they live their lives according to the currents and find food by floating ventral-side up; some may more actively forage, at times.
In Biome: Marine, Lead section
The Thecosomata (collective/plural: thecosomes, from Ancient Greek θήκη (thḗkē), meaning "case", and σῶμα (sôma), meaning "body"), or sea butterflies, are a taxonomic suborder of small, pelagic, free-swimming sea snails known as holoplanktonic opisthobranch gastropod mollusks, in the order Pteropoda (also included within the informal group Opisthobranchia).
View the Source 2. Wikidata (taxon extant/extinct status)
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