''Buccinum tsubai'' is a

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 s ...

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 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 e ...

in the

family Family (from la, familia) is a Social group, group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or Affinity (law), affinity (by marriage or other relationship). The purpose of the family is to maintain the well-being of its ...

Buccinidae, the true whelks.

Description

The size of an adult shell varies between . This species has a thin shell with inflated

whorls A whorl ( or ) is an individual circle, oval, volution or equivalent in a whorled pattern, which consists of a spiral or multiple concentric objects (including circles, ovals and arcs). Whorls in nature File:Photograph and axial plane floral d ...

and an oval to oblong, wide

aperture In optics, an aperture is a hole or an opening through which light travels. More specifically, the aperture and focal length of an optical system determine the cone angle of a bundle of rays that come to a focus in the image plane. An opt ...

. Across the surface run a large number of very fine, reticulated threads. The outer lip is not thick. The tsubai whelk shows sexual dimorphism, but it is not clear whether the female is larger than the male as is the case in most ''Buccinum'' species. Akira Iguchi, Hiroharu Ito, Masahiro Ueno, Tsuneo Maeda, Takashi Minami and Isao Hayashi, ''Morphological analysis of a deep-sea whelk Buccinum tsubai in the Sea of Japan'' ; Fisheries Science, Volume 71, Number 4, 823-828

Distribution

This deep-sea marine species can be found in depths between 200 and 1,000 m in the Japan Sea along

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

and

Korea Korea ( ko, 한국, or , ) is a peninsular region in East Asia. Since 1945, it has been divided at or near the 38th parallel, with North Korea (Democratic People's Republic of Korea) comprising its northern half and South Korea (Republic o ...

References

External links

Akira IGUCHI, Masahiro UENO, Tsuneo MAEDA, Takashi MINAMI, Isao Hayashi , ''Genetic population structure of the deep-sea whelk Buccinum tsubai in the Japan Sea'', Fisheries Science (2004) Volume: 70, Issue: 4, Pages: 569–572
* Chinzei, K., 1973: Omma-Manganjian molluscan fauna in the Futatsui area of northern Akita, Japan. Transactions and Proceedings of the Palaeontological Society of Japan. New Series, no. 90, pp. 81–94, pl. 14 Buccinidae Gastropods described in 1933 {{Buccinidae-stub