''Ceritoturris bittium'' 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

Horaiclavidae Horaiclavidae is a family of predatory sea snails, marine gastropod mollusks in the superfamily Conoidea. In 2011 this family was split off from the family Pseudomelatomidae (formerly the subfamily Crassispirinae McLean, 1971) by Bouchet P., Ka ...

Bouchet, P. (2015). Ceritoturris bittium (Dall, 1924). In: MolluscaBase (2015). Accessed through: World Register of Marine Species at http://www.marinespecies.org/aphia.php?p=taxdetails&id=719111 on 2017-01-16 It was formerly included within the family

Pseudomelatomidae Pseudomelatomidae is a family of predatory sea snails, marine gastropods included in the superfamily Conoidea (previously Conacea) and part of the Neogastropoda ( Bouchet & Rocroi, 2005). In 1995 Kantor elevated the subfamily Pseudomelatomina ...

Description

The length of the shell attains 7 mm. (Original description) The minute shell has a blunt

protoconch A protoconch (meaning first or earliest or original shell) is an embryonic or larval shell which occurs in some classes of molluscs, e.g., the initial chamber of an ammonite or the larval shell of a gastropod. In older texts it is also called ...

. The second

whorl 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 ...

shows a peripheral keel. The seven subsequent whorls are moderately rounded, axially and spirally sculptured whorls. The

siphonal canal The siphonal canal is an anatomical feature of the shells of certain groups of sea snails within the clade Neogastropoda. Some sea marine gastropods have a soft tubular anterior extension of the mantle called a siphon through which water is ...

is almost obsolete.Dall (1924)
''W.H. Dall, Notes on Molluscan Nomenclature; Proc. biol. Soc. Washington'' 37: 88.
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Distribution

This marine species occurs off Hawaii.

References

External links

*
Tucker, J.K. 2004 ''Catalog of recent and fossil turrids (Mollusca: Gastropoda)''. Zootaxa 682:1–1295.

bittium ''Bittium'' is a genus of very small sea snails, marine gastropod molluscs in the family Cerithiidae, the horn snails.Gofas, S. (2011). Bittium Leach in Gray, 1847. Accessed through: World Register of Marine Species at http://www.marinespeci ...

Gastropods described in 1924 {{Horaiclavidae-stub