''Hystrivasum horridum'', common name the rough or shaggy vase, is a fossil

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 medium-sized

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 ...

gastropod in the

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

Turbinellidae Turbinellidae are a family of sea snails, marine gastropod mollusks in the clade Neogastropoda. Members of this family are predators. Distribution Species in this family are found worldwide, mostly in tropical shallow waters but some in deep wa ...

. This species is extinct and is found in the

Pleistocene The Pleistocene ( , often referred to as the ''Ice age'') is the geological epoch that lasted from about 2,580,000 to 11,700 years ago, spanning the Earth's most recent period of repeated glaciations. Before a change was finally confirmed in ...

deposits of

Florida Florida is a state located in the Southeastern region of the United States. Florida is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the northwest by Alabama, to the north by Georgia, to the east by the Bahamas and Atlantic Ocean, and to ...

Etymology

The specific name ''horridum'' is

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...

for "rough" or "shaggy" and does not mean "horrid".

Shell description

Like other species in the subfamily Vasinae, ''Hystrivasum horridum'' shells are large, thick and heavy. They are vase-shaped, in the sense that they are biconical. The shells have moderate

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 ...

s, and have several plaits on 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 ...

. ''Hystrivasum horridum'', formerly ''Vasum horridum'', belongs to an extinct group that is easily distinguished from modern ''Vasum'' by the presence of two sets of spines or nodes located on the shoulder of the whorls. These spines can be found at the suture and at the periphery of the shoulder. ''H. horridum'' has 12-15 wide, scoop-like spines that project almost horizontally from the shoulder. Also, ''H. horridum'' has a pronounced "waist-like" constriction at the base of the shell. These characteristics set it apart from other members of the group. ''Hystrivasum horridum'' is known only from the Pleistocene of Florida. It is "one of the most characteristic and elegant fossils of the Caloosahatchee marl." It was first described by

Angelo Heilprin Angelo Heilprin (March 31, 1853 – July 17, 1907) was an American geologist, paleontologist, naturalist, and explorer. He is mostly known for the part he took into the Peary expedition to Greenland of 1891–1892 and for his observations and ...

in 1886. The famous

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, ...

William Healey Dall William Healey Dall (August 21, 1845 – March 27, 1927) was an American naturalist, a prominent malacologist, and one of the earliest scientific explorers of interior Alaska. He described many mollusks of the Pacific Northwest of America, and ...

stated that this "magnificent species seems to be confined to he Pliocene Caloosahatchie Bedsand to have given rise to no descendant in the recent fauna.” Dall W. H. 1890
''Contributions to the Tertiary Fauna of Florida with special reference to the Miocene Silex Beds of Tampa and the Pliocene Beds of the Caloosahatchie River''
The Transactions of the Wagner Free Institute of Science of Philadelphia, page 99.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q5962431 Turbinellidae Pleistocene gastropods Gastropods described in 1886

Etymology

Shell description

See also

References