''Mangelia china'' is an extinct 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 Mangeliidae.MacNeil, Francis Stearns. "Tertiary and Quaternary gastropoda of Okinawa." US Geol. Surv. Prof. Pap. 339 (1960): 1-148
/ref>

Description

The length of the shell attains 14 mm, its diameter 5 mm. (Original description) The small shell has a fusiform shape. Its

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 are bluntly carinate. The spire is moderately sharp, of about the same length as the aperture. The

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 ...

is not well enough preserved on the type for description. The aperture is of medium width, narrowing anteriorly where it is produced to form a

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 ...

of moderate length. The outer lip is not preserved on the type but shown by growth lines to recurve above the periphery to form a moderately broad, moderately deep sinus. The parietal wall is lightly callused posteriorly and slightly resorbed anteriorly. The sculpture consists of blunt, slightly protractive axial ribs, about seven visible from an angle, and fine somewhat irregular spiral lirations which are slightly more crowded on the subsutural slope and slightly coarser on the columella. Some secondary threads are present. The suture is appressed with a well defined subsutural collar.

Distribution

This extinct marine species was found in Miocene strata of Okinawa, Japan.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q39090783

china China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

Gastropods described in 1960