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Pleurotomella Bellistriata
''Pleurotomella bellistriata'' is an extinct species of sea snail, a marine gastropod mollusk in the family Raphitomidae. Description The length of the shell attains 25 mm, its diameter 12 mm. (Original description) The small, subfusiform shell has a rather short pointed spire and contains about 5 whorls. The large body whorl is somewhat inflated. The earlier whorls are nearly flat. The surface is sculptured with numerous alternating larger and smaller spiral threads crossed by fine wavy lines and by irregularly spaced oblique ribs, about twenty in number on the body whorl. The ribs are strongest at the shoulder, gradually disappearing both posteriorly and anteriorly. The shell is somewhat excavated behind the shoulder. The aperture is narrow. This form is from the Woodstock stage. Distribution Fossils of this marine species were found in Oligocene strata of Maryland Maryland ( ) is a state in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It shares borders wit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Species
In biology, a species is the basic unit of classification and a taxonomic rank of an organism, as well as a unit of biodiversity. A species is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate sexes or mating types can produce fertile offspring, typically by sexual reproduction. Other ways of defining species include their karyotype, DNA sequence, morphology, behaviour or ecological niche. In addition, paleontologists use the concept of the chronospecies since fossil reproduction cannot be examined. The most recent rigorous estimate for the total number of species of eukaryotes is between 8 and 8.7 million. However, only about 14% of these had been described by 2011. All species (except viruses) are given a two-part name, a "binomial". The first part of a binomial is the genus to which the species belongs. The second part is called the specific name or the specific epithet (in botanical nomenclature, also sometimes i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sea Snail
Sea snail is a common name for slow-moving marine gastropod molluscs, usually with visible external shells, such as whelk or abalone. They share the taxonomic class Gastropoda with slugs, which are distinguished from snails primarily by the absence of a visible shell. Definition Determining whether some gastropods should be called sea snails is not always easy. Some species that live in brackish water (such as certain neritids) can be listed as either freshwater snails or marine snails, and some species that live at or just above the high tide level (for example species in the genus '' Truncatella'') are sometimes considered to be sea snails and sometimes listed as land snails. Anatomy Sea snails are a very large group of animals and a very diverse one. Most snails that live in salt water respire using a gill or gills; a few species, though, have a lung, are intertidal, and are active only at low tide when they can move around in the air. These air-breathing species includ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gastropod
The gastropods (), commonly known as snails and slugs, belong to a large taxonomic class of invertebrates within the phylum Mollusca called Gastropoda (). This class comprises snails and slugs from saltwater, from freshwater, and from land. There are many thousands of species of sea snails and slugs, as well as freshwater snails, freshwater limpets, and land snails and slugs. The class Gastropoda contains a vast total of named species, second only to the insects in overall number. The fossil history of this class goes back to the Late Cambrian. , 721 families of gastropods are known, of which 245 are extinct and appear only in the fossil record, while 476 are currently extant with or without a fossil record. Gastropoda (previously known as univalves and sometimes spelled "Gasteropoda") are a major part of the phylum Mollusca, and are the most highly diversified class in the phylum, with 65,000 to 80,000 living snail and slug species. The anatomy, behavior, feeding, and re ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mollusk
Mollusca is the second-largest phylum of invertebrate animals after the Arthropoda, the members of which are known as molluscs or mollusks (). Around 85,000 extant species of molluscs are recognized. The number of fossil species is estimated between 60,000 and 100,000 additional species. The proportion of undescribed species is very high. Many taxa remain poorly studied. Molluscs are the largest marine phylum, comprising about 23% of all the named marine organisms. Numerous molluscs also live in freshwater and terrestrial habitats. They are highly diverse, not just in size and anatomical structure, but also in behaviour and habitat. The phylum is typically divided into 7 or 8 taxonomic classes, of which two are entirely extinct. Cephalopod molluscs, such as squid, cuttlefish, and octopuses, are among the most neurologically advanced of all invertebrates—and either the giant squid or the colossal squid is the largest known invertebrate species. The gas ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Family (biology)
Family ( la, familia, plural ') is one of the eight major hierarchical taxonomic ranks in Linnaean taxonomy. It is classified between order and genus. A family may be divided into subfamilies, which are intermediate ranks between the ranks of family and genus. The official family names are Latin in origin; however, popular names are often used: for example, walnut trees and hickory trees belong to the family Juglandaceae, but that family is commonly referred to as the "walnut family". What belongs to a family—or if a described family should be recognized at all—are proposed and determined by practicing taxonomists. There are no hard rules for describing or recognizing a family, but in plants, they can be characterized on the basis of both vegetative and reproductive features of plant species. Taxonomists often take different positions about descriptions, and there may be no broad consensus across the scientific community for some time. The publishing of new data and opini ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Raphitomidae
Raphitomidae is a family of small to medium-sized sea snails, marine gastropod mollusks in the superfamily Conoidea.Bouchet P. & Rocroi J.-P. (Ed.) (2005). "Classification and nomenclator of gastropod families". '' Malacologia'' 47(1-2). . 397 pp. Bouchet, Kantor ''et al''. elevated in 2011 the subfamily Raphitominae (which at that point had been placed in the family Conidae) to the rank of family. This was based on a cladistical analysis of shell morphology, radular characteristics, anatomical characters, and a dataset of molecular sequences of three gene fragments. The family was found to be monophyletic. Description The Raphitomidae is the largest, most diverse and most variable taxon in the Conoidea, with the greatest number of species and the largest ecological range (from the tropics to the pole) and largest vertical range ( intertidal to hadal depths). The shells of species in the Raphitomidae are very variable in shape (buccinoid to ovate, elongate-fusiform, o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Spire (mollusc)
A spire is a part of the coiled shell of molluscs. The spire consists of all of the whorls except for the body whorl. Each spire whorl represents a rotation of 360°. A spire is part of the shell of a snail, a gastropod mollusc, a gastropod shell, and also the whorls of the shell in ammonites, which are fossil shelled cephalopods. In textbook illustrations of gastropod shells, the tradition (with a few exceptions) is to show most shells with the spire uppermost on the page. The spire, when it is not damaged or eroded, includes the protoconch (also called the nuclear whorls or the larval shell), and most of the subsequent teleoconch whorls (also called the postnuclear whorls), which gradually increase in area as they are formed. Thus the spire in most gastropods is pointed, the tip being known as the "apex". The word "spire" is used, in an analogy to a church spire or rock spire, a high, thin, pinnacle. The "spire angle" is the angle, as seen from the apex, at which a spire ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Whorl (mollusc)
A whorl is a single, complete 360° revolution or turn in the spiral growth of a mollusc shell. A spiral configuration of the shell is found in numerous gastropods, but it is also found in shelled cephalopods including ''Nautilus'', ''Spirula'' and the large extinct subclass of cephalopods known as the ammonites. A spiral shell can be visualized as consisting of a long conical tube, the growth of which is coiled into an overall helical or planispiral shape, for reasons of both strength and compactness. The number of whorls which exist in an adult shell of a particular species depends on mathematical factors in the geometric growth, as described in D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson's classic 1917 book ''On Growth and Form'', and by David Raup. The main factor is how rapidly the conical tube expands (or flares-out) over time. When the rate of expansion is low, such that each subsequent whorl is not that much wider than the previous one, then the adult shell has numerous whorls. When the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Body Whorl
The body whorl is part of the morphology of the shell in those gastropod mollusks that possess a coiled shell. The term is also sometimes used in a similar way to describe the shell of a cephalopod mollusk. In gastropods In gastropods, the body whorl, or last whorl, is the most recently formed and largest whorl (or revolution) of a spiral or helical shell, terminating in the aperture. It is called the "body whorl" because most of the body of the soft parts of the animal fits into this whorl. The proportional size of the body whorl in gastropod shells differs greatly according to the actual shell morphology. For shells in which the rate of whorl expansion of each revolution around the axis is very high, the aperture and the body whorl are large, and the shell tends to be low spired. The shell of the abalone is a good example of this kind of shell. The opposite tendency can sometimes create a high spire with very little whorl increase per revolution. In these instances, e.g. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Aperture (mollusc)
The aperture is an opening in certain kinds of mollusc shells: it is the main opening of the shell, where the head-foot part of the body of the animal emerges for locomotion, feeding, etc. The term ''aperture'' is used for the main opening in gastropod shells, scaphopod shells, and also for ''Nautilus'' and ammonite shells. The word is not used to describe bivalve shells, where a natural opening between the two shell valves in the closed position is usually called a ''gape''. Scaphopod shells are tubular, and thus they have two openings: a main anterior aperture and a smaller posterior aperture. As well as the aperture, some gastropod shells have additional openings in their shells for respiration; this is the case in some Fissurellidae (keyhole limpets) where the central smaller opening at the apex of the shell is called an orifice, and in the Haliotidae (abalones) where the row of respiratory openings in the shell are also called orifices. In gastropods In some prosobranch ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Oligocene
The Oligocene ( ) is a geologic epoch of the Paleogene Period and extends from about 33.9 million to 23 million years before the present ( to ). As with other older geologic periods, the rock beds that define the epoch are well identified but the exact dates of the start and end of the epoch are slightly uncertain. The name Oligocene was coined in 1854 by the German paleontologist Heinrich Ernst Beyrich from his studies of marine beds in Belgium and Germany. The name comes from the Ancient Greek (''olígos'', "few") and (''kainós'', "new"), and refers to the sparsity of extant forms of molluscs. The Oligocene is preceded by the Eocene Epoch and is followed by the Miocene Epoch. The Oligocene is the third and final epoch of the Paleogene Period. The Oligocene is often considered an important time of transition, a link between the archaic world of the tropical Eocene and the more modern ecosystems of the Miocene. Major changes during the Oligocene included a global expansion o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Maryland
Maryland ( ) is a state in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It shares borders with Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware and the Atlantic Ocean to its east. Baltimore is the largest city in the state, and the capital is Annapolis. Among its occasional nicknames are '' Old Line State'', the ''Free State'', and the '' Chesapeake Bay State''. It is named after Henrietta Maria, the French-born queen of England, Scotland, and Ireland, who was known then in England as Mary. Before its coastline was explored by Europeans in the 16th century, Maryland was inhabited by several groups of Native Americans – mostly by Algonquian peoples and, to a lesser degree, Iroquoian and Siouan. As one of the original Thirteen Colonies of England, Maryland was founded by George Calvert, 1st Baron Baltimore, a Catholic convert"George Calvert and Cecilius Calvert, Barons Baltimore" William Hand Browne, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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