''Leiocithara apollinea'' 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 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 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 ...

Mangeliidae Mangeliidae is a monophyletic family of small to medium-sized, predatory sea snails, marine gastropod mollusks in the superfamily Conoidea. Bouchet, P. (2011). Mangeliidae P. Fischer, 1883. In: MolluscaBase (2016). Accessed through: World Regis ...

.WoRMS (2009). Leiocithara apollinea (Melvill, 1904). In: MolluscaBase (2017). Accessed through: World Register of Marine Species at http://www.marinespecies.org/aphia.php?p=taxdetails&id=434188 on 2017-08-03

Description

The length of the shell attains 5 mm, its diameter 1.75 mm. This white shell is a scalate ''Leiocithara'' .It has an ovate fusiform shape and contains 5

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 ...

s. It is principally conspicuous for its thickened longitudinal ribs, 9–10 in number on 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 ...

. The interstices are quite smooth. One spiral keel alone, a little below the sutures, crosses the ribs at right angles, and at the point of junction bears a beaded point. 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 ...

is oblong and becomes narrower at its base. The outer lip is incrassate.J.C. Melvill, descriptions of twenty-three species of Gastropoda from the Persian Gulf, Gulf of Oman, and Arabian Sea, dredged by Mr. F. W. Townsend, of the Indo-European Telegraph Service, in 1903.." Journal of Molluscan Studies 6.6 (1904)

Distribution

This species occurs in the

Gulf of Oman The Gulf of Oman or Sea of Oman ( ar, خليج عمان ''khalīj ʿumān''; fa, دریای عمان ''daryâ-ye omân''), also known as Gulf of Makran or Sea of Makran ( ar, خلیج مکران ''khalīj makrān''; fa, دریای مکرا� ...

References

Kilburn R.N. 1992. Turridae (Mollusca: Gastropoda) of southern Africa and Mozambique. Part 6. Subfamily Mangeliinae, section 1. Annals of the Natal Museum, 33: 461–575

External links

Tucker, J.K. 2004 ''Catalog of recent and fossil turrids (Mollusca: Gastropoda)''. Zootaxa 682:1-1295
{{DEFAULTSORT:Leiocithara Apollinea apollinea Gastropods described in 1904