---
title: Yerbury's Chiton (Ischnochiton yerburyi)
scientific_name: Ischnochiton yerburyi
common_name: Yerbury's Chiton
taxon: Chitons
published: 2026-08-04T21:32:44.564Z
updated: 2026-08-20T17:11:25.918Z
tags: Yerbury's Chiton, Ischnochiton yerburyi, Chitons, Red Sea, Marine Life, Diving
url: https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/invertebrate/molluscs/chitons/yerburys-chiton
---

# Yerbury's Chiton (*Ischnochiton yerburyi*)

## Quick facts

- **Group:** Chitons (*Polyplacophora*)
- **Size:** up to 20 mm
- **Depth:** 0-10 m
- **Diet:** Herbivore
- **Activity:** Nocturnal
- **Rarity:** Uncommon
- **Habitat:** Undersides of stones and coral rubble

## How to recognise it

- small, flat, oval - barely raised above the rock
- girdle narrow and finely scaled, not spiny
- found by turning rubble, never out in the open

A small, flat, oval chiton, far less armoured in appearance than the big shore species: the eight plates sit low and smooth, and the girdle around them is narrow and covered in fine scales rather than bristles. Color varies from olive and gray-green to mottled brown, often with paler streaks along the plate margins - a pattern that matches the underside of a rock closely. Length reaches about 20 mm (0.8 in).

Animals live pressed to the undersides of loose stones and slabs of coral rubble, in the narrow damp gap between rock and sediment, from the low tide line down to about 10 m (33 ft). They graze algal film and diatoms with the radula, moving only after dark and only over a few centimetres. Turning a rock is the one way to find them, which is also why they are recorded far less often than their abundance warrants; the rule with such animals is to put the stone back exactly as it lay, since everything living underneath it depends on the shade and the moisture it holds.

## Also known as

- **Russian:** Ишнохитон Йербери

## Scientific synonyms

- *Chiton (Ischnochiton) yerburyi* E. A. Smith, 1891
- *Ischnochiton (Ischnochiton) delogoaensis* Ashby, 1931
- *Ischnochiton (Ischnochiton) yerburyi* (E. A. Smith, 1891)
- *Ischnochiton (Radsiella) delagoaensis* Ashby, 1931
- *Ischnochiton delagoaensis* Ashby, 1931
- *Ischnochiton haersoltei* Kaas, 1954
- *Ischnochiton rufopunctatus* Odhner, 1919

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*Source: [Red Sea Creatures](https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/invertebrate/molluscs/chitons/yerburys-chiton)*
*Updated: August 20, 2026*