''Herpetopoma bellum'' 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 ...

marine Marine is an adjective meaning of or pertaining to the sea or ocean. Marine or marines may refer to: Ocean * Maritime (disambiguation) * Marine art * Marine biology * Marine debris * Marine habitats * Marine life * Marine pollution Military * ...

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 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 esti ...

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 ...

Chilodontidae.Rosenberg, G. (2012). Herpetopoma bellum. Accessed through: World Register of Marine Species at http://www.marinespecies.org/aphia.php?p=taxdetails&id=598367 on 2012-05-24

Description

The size of the shell varies between 4 mm and 5.5 mm. The small, solid, thick shell has a globose-conic shape, evenly grained all over. it is blackish or pink varied with darker. It is imperforate when adult, and has a groove at the place of the umbilicus. The short

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 are ...

is conic. The apical

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 ...

is smooth, the following whorl has three granose lirae, the next with 3 or 4; the penultimate has 7 or 8 equal, grained lirae. The interstices are narrow. The

body whorl The body whorl is part of the morphology of the shell in those gastropod mollusks that possess a coiled shell. The term is also sometimes used in a similar way to describe the shell of a cephalopod mollusk. In gastropods In gastropods, the b ...

has ten such lirae. The teleoconch contains 5 convex whorls. The last one is globose, descending at the

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 ...

. The rounded aperture is nacre with steel-blue and dark red reflections. It is lirate inside. The concave

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 ...

terminates in a tooth, below which there is a narrow notch, and another tubercle or tooth on the basal

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 ...

equal in size to the columellar denticle.

Distribution

This marine species occurs 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 ...

., Powell A. W. B., ''New Zealand Mollusca'', William Collins Publishers Ltd, Auckland, New Zealand 1979

Chatham Island Chatham Island ( ) (Moriori: ''Rēkohu'', 'Misty Sun'; mi, Wharekauri) is by far the largest island of the Chatham Islands group, in the south Pacific Ocean off the eastern coast of New Zealand's South Island. It is said to be "halfway bet ...

and

Tasmania ) , nickname = , image_map = Tasmania in Australia.svg , map_caption = Location of Tasmania in AustraliaCoordinates: , subdivision_type = Country , subdi ...

References

External links

* {{Taxonbar, from=Q3138764 bellum Gastropods described in 1873