''Harpa cabriti'', previously known as ''Harpa ventricosa'' Lamarck, 1816,Rehder H. A. (1992). "''Harpa cabriti'' Fischer, 1860, a replacement name for ''Harpa ventricosa'' Lamarck, 1816". '' The Nautilus'' 106(3)
123
124. common name the ventral harp, 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 ...

of large sea snail, a

predatory Predation is a biological interaction where one organism, the predator, kills and eats another organism, its prey. It is one of a family of common feeding behaviours that includes parasitism and micropredation (which usually do not kill th ...

marine gastropod

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 Harpidae, the harp snails.Bouchet, P. (2015). Harpa cabriti P. Fischer, 1860. In: MolluscaBase (2015). Accessed through: World Register of Marine Species at http://www.marinespecies.org/aphia.php?p=taxdetails&id=403831 on 2016-05-26 The shell is often collected by shell-collecting hobbyists.

Description

The pretty large, oval shell is ventricose, and polished. It is ornamented with more or less distant, wide, compressed, smooth, parallel ribs, inclined towards the base, of a pale rose color, most commonly with quadrangular deep brown spots. These ribs are pointed at their summit, and a little below these form a slight keel, caused by small asperities. The interstice between the ribs is slightly striated longitudinally. The ground color of the shell is whitish or violet, adorned with brown or reddish spots, forming regular festoons throughout its whole length. There are found also upon the surface of the shell two or three bands, sometimes replaced by large spots, which alike surround it. The middle band is always most apparent. The

spire A spire is a tall, slender, pointed structure on top of a roof of a building or tower, especially at the summit of church steeples. A spire may have a square, circular, or polygonal plan, with a roughly conical or pyramidal shape. Spires a ...

is short and is composed of six whorls slightly flattened above. The large

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 ...

is reddish, terminated at its base by an oblique, shallow emargination, marked within with brown spots or bands. The outer

lip The lips are the visible body part at the mouth of many animals, including humans. Lips are soft, movable, and serve as the opening for food intake and in the articulation of sound and speech. Human lips are a tactile sensory organ, and can be ...

is bordered externally by the last rib. The

columella Lucius Junius Moderatus Columella (; Arabic: , 4 – ) was a prominent writer on agriculture in the Roman Empire. His ' in twelve volumes has been completely preserved and forms an important source on Roman agriculture, together with the wo ...

is smooth, brilliant, and almost covered with very dark brown spots.Kiener (1840). General species and iconography of recent shells : comprising the Massena Museum, the collection of Lamarck, the collection of the Museum of Natural History, and the recent discoveries of travellers; Boston :W.D. Ticknor,1837
(described as ''Harpa ventricosa'')

Distribution

This marine snail is found from the

Red Sea The Red Sea ( ar, البحر الأحمر - بحر القلزم, translit=Modern: al-Baḥr al-ʾAḥmar, Medieval: Baḥr al-Qulzum; or ; Coptic: ⲫⲓⲟⲙ ⲛ̀ϩⲁϩ ''Phiom Enhah'' or ⲫⲓⲟⲙ ⲛ̀ϣⲁⲣⲓ ''Phiom ǹšari''; ...

south to

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the Atlantic Ocean, South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the ...

. It lives in the

Indian Indian or Indians may refer to: Peoples South Asia * Indian people, people of Indian nationality, or people who have an Indian ancestor ** Non-resident Indian, a citizen of India who has temporarily emigrated to another country * South Asia ...

and

Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the contin ...

References

* DANCE, S.P. & G.T. POPPE, 1999 ''Family Harpidae''. In : A Conchological Iconography (ConchBooks, ed.), 69 p

External links

*
Page with an image from the Natural History Museum of Rotterdam
{{Taxonbar, from=Q3013200 Harpidae Gastropods described in 1816