''Bellaspira pentagonalis'' is a
species of
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 ...
, a marine
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. T ...
mollusk in the
family Drilliidae
The Drilliidae are a Taxonomy (biology), taxonomic family (biology), family of small predatory sea snails with high-spired shells. They are classified as marine (ocean), marine gastropod mollusks in the superfamily Conoidea.
This family has no s ...
.
Description
The shell grows to a length of 10 mm.
The stout shell has a white tip. The whorls are whitish and the summits of the five ribs are brownish. The ribs are continuous from base to summit and the cross-section of the shell forms an exact pentagon with rounded
angles. The ribs are not continuous, except accidentally. The other characters are closely similar to
Fenimorea pagodula (Dall, 1889)Dall W. H. 1889. Reports on the results of dredging, under the supervision of Alexander Agassiz, in the Gulf of Mexico (1877-78) and in the Caribbean Sea (1879-80), by the U.S. Coast Survey Steamer "Blake", Lieut.-Commander C.D. Sigsbee, U.S.N., and Commander J.R. Bartlett, U.S.N., commanding. XXIX. Report on the Mollusca. Part 2, Gastropoda and Scaphopoda. Bulletin of the Museum of Comparative Zoölogy at Harvard College 18: 1-492, pls. 10-40
/ref>
Distribution
This marine species occurs from North Carolina (Cape Hatteras) to Florida, and in the Gulf of Mexico off Western Florida
West Florida ( es, Florida Occidental) was a region on the northern coast of the Gulf of Mexico that underwent several boundary and sovereignty changes during its history. As its name suggests, it was formed out of the western part of former ...
and in the Caribbean Sea off Aruba
Aruba ( , , ), officially the Country of Aruba ( nl, Land Aruba; pap, Pais Aruba) is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands physically located in the mid-south of the Caribbean Sea, about north of the Venezuela peninsula of ...
and French Guiana.
References
G., F. Moretzsohn, and E. F. García. 2009. ''Gastropoda (Mollusca) of the Gulf of Mexico'', pp. 579–699 in Felder, D.L. and D.K. Camp (eds.), Gulf of Mexico–Origins, Waters, and Biota. Biodiversity. Texas A&M Press, College Station, Texas
External links
*
McLean, James H., and Leroy H. Poorman. ''Reinstatement of the turrid genus Bellaspira Conrad, 1868 (Mollusca: Gastropoda) with a review of the known species.'' Los Angeles County Museum of Natural History, 1970
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bellaspira Pentagonalis
pentagonalis
Gastropods described in 1889