''Oenopota subturgida'' 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 ...

.Rosenberg, G. (2010). Oenopota subturgida. In: MolluscaBase (2017). Accessed through: World Register of Marine Species at http://www.marinespecies.org/aphia.php?p=taxdetails&id=533202 on 2017-11-27

Description

The length of the shell attains 9 mm, its diameter 5 mm. (Original description) The white, translucent shell is of moderate size, stout-fusiform, with swollen, angulated whorls, and a distinctly turreted, rapidly tapering

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 ...

. The

sculpture Sculpture is the branch of the visual arts that operates in three dimensions. Sculpture is the three-dimensional art work which is physically presented in the dimensions of height, width and depth. It is one of the plastic arts. Durable sc ...

consists of rather distant ribs and much finer spiral cinguli. The largest specimen, which is probably immature, has four

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 below 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 ...

. The three upper whorls are abruptly angularly shouldered, the portion forming the subsutural band rising nearly at right angles to the shoulder. Below the whorls are flattened and strongly ribbed by about sixteen prominent, rather narrow, obtuse, nearly straight ribs, which rise into angular points or small, obtuse nodules at the shoulder. The interspaces are wider than the ribs and strongly concave. The ribs and interspaces also extend across the subsutural band to the suture, becoming small above the shoulder. The whole surface is covered by rather slender revolving cinguli, in the form of thin, raised lines, which are most conspicuous in the interspaces and more or less obsolete on the ribs. On the subsutural band the spiral lines are finer and closer, and often indistinct toward the suture, but on the anterior part of 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 ...

they become somewhat coarser and wider apart. The body whorl is much swollen and has the shoulder somewhat rounded, while on the upper whorls there is often a distinct carina at the shoulder. The

is small and prominent, smooth, and consists of about1½ whorls, of which the apical is turned up obliquely and incurved. 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 ovate, broadly rounded externally, and more strongly excavated at the base of the columella. 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 ...

is a little elongated, narrow, constricted at the base by the incurvature of the outer lip, and with the opening oblique, owing to the form of the columella margin, but not bent. The columella is nearly straight, its inner margin forming a well-marked sigmoid curve, and strongly obliquely twisted at the anterior end.Verrill, A. E. 1884. ''Second catalogue of Mollusca recently added to the fauna of the New England coast and the adjacent parts of the Atlantic, consisting mostly of deep-sea species, with notes on others previously recorded.'' Transactions of the Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences 6: 139–294, pls. 28–32.

Distribution

This marine species occurs off

North Carolina North Carolina () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States. The state is the 28th largest and 9th-most populous of the United States. It is bordered by Virginia to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the east, Georgia and So ...

, USA.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Oenopota Subturgida subturgida Gastropods described in 1884