''Carinaria galea'',

common name In biology, a common name of a taxon or organism (also known as a vernacular name, English name, colloquial name, country name, popular name, or farmer's name) is a name that is based on the normal language of everyday life; and is often contrast ...

the helmeted carinaria, 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

pelagic The pelagic zone consists of the water column of the open ocean, and can be further divided into regions by depth (as illustrated on the right). The word ''pelagic'' is derived . The pelagic zone can be thought of as an imaginary cylinder or wa ...

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 ...

mollusc 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 ...

Carinariidae Carinariidae, known by the common name "heteropods" like their relatives in the Pterotracheoidea, is a taxonomic family of swimming or floating sea snails, pelagic marine gastropod molluscs in the clade Littorinimorpha. Distribution The snails ...

. It was first described in 1835 by

William Henry Benson William Henry Benson (1803, probably in Dublin - 27 January 1870) was a civil servant in British India and an amateur malacologist. He made large collections of molluscs and described numerous speciesNaggs F. (1997). "William Benson and the earl ...

, an amateur

malacologist Malacology is the branch of invertebrate zoology that deals with the study of the Mollusca (mollusks or molluscs), the second-largest phylum of animals in terms of described species after the arthropods. Mollusks include snails and slugs, clams, ...

in the

Bengal Civil Service The Indian Civil Service (ICS), officially known as the Imperial Civil Service, was the higher civil service of the British Empire in India during British rule in the period between 1858 and 1947. Its members ruled over more than 300 million p ...

Description

Benson described the shell of ''Carinaria galea'' in detail as "Shell dextral, with the last whorl incurved, compressed, conical, nearly embracing the terminal spire, marked with transverse rugae, broadly keeled. Keel with very oblique rugae, which are curved upwards in the direction of the spire. Aperture transverse, ovate, narrowed towards the keel." It is a large snail reaching a total body length of . The shell is conical, taller than it is wide, and has a well-developed keel. The body is slender and cylindrical and cannot be retracted into the shell. It has a thin skin with a few large tubercles. The body is transparent and the mouthparts, gut and dark retinas can easily be seen. A pigmented area containing the main body organs is concealed in the shell alongside about six

gill A gill () is a respiratory organ that many aquatic organisms use to extract dissolved oxygen from water and to excrete carbon dioxide. The gills of some species, such as hermit crabs, have adapted to allow respiration on land provided they are ...

s. The tail region has a low crest. On the opposite side of the animal to the shell is a large rounded swimming fin with a sucker. The animal swims by undulating the fin from side to side.

Distribution

It is found in the warm waters of the Indo-Pacific Ocean and is a

holoplankton Holoplankton are organisms that are plankton, planktic (they live in the water column and cannot swim against a current) for their entire life cycle. Holoplankton can be contrasted with meroplankton, which are planktic organisms that spend part of ...

ic species that spends it entire life as part of the

plankton Plankton are the diverse collection of organisms found in Hydrosphere, water (or atmosphere, air) that are unable to propel themselves against a Ocean current, current (or wind). The individual organisms constituting plankton are called plankt ...

. It has also been found off

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...

and the Galapagos Islands.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q4946674 Carinariidae Gastropods described in 1835 Taxa named by William Henry Benson