''Microdrillia triporcata'' 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 ...

Borsoniidae Borsoniidae is a monophyletic family of small to medium-sized sea snails, marine gastropod mollusks in the superfamily Conoidea.Bouchet, P. (2011). Borsoniidae. Accessed through: World Register of Marine Species at http://www.marinespecies.o ...

.WoRMS (2015). Microdrillia triporcata (E. A. Smith, 1879). In: MolluscaBase (2015). Accessed through: World Register of Marine Species at http://www.marinespecies.org/aphia.php?p=taxdetails&id=434410 on 2016-03-16

Description

The length of the shell attains 14 mm; its width 4.5 mm.. (Original description) The shell has a shortly fusiform shape. Its color is a uniform pale brown or luteous tint. It contains 9

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, the first globular, glassy, rather large, the rest encircled with three distinct keels. The uppermost is just beneath the suture. The median one (the most prominent of all) is situated in the middle of the whorls, and the lowermost a little above the lower suture. The interstices between the carinations are finely latticed with spiral thread-like lirae and raised incremental lines. The former are about three or four in number in each of the interstitial spaces, and the latter very arcuate between the central and uppermost keel, and very oblique beneath the former. 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 about twelve additional carinae or lirae, whereof the four uppermost are stouter and further apart than those beneath. The columella is a little oblique and arcuate above the middle, more sloping below. The lip is thin, very much produced in the middle, widely and deeply notched between the terminations of the uppermost and principal keels. The

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 ...

short and recurved.Smith, Edgar A. "11. On a Collection of Mollusca from Japan." Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London. Vol. 47. No. 1. Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 1879
(described as ''Pleurotoma difficilis'')

Distribution

This marine species occurs off

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

References

External links

Bouchet P., Kantor Yu.I., Sysoev A. & Puillandre N. (2011) A new operational classification of the Conoidea. Journal of Molluscan Studies 77: 273–308
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Microdrillia Triporcata triporcata Gastropods described in 1879