''Pleurotomella elusiva'' 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 in the
family Raphitomidae
Raphitomidae is a family of small to medium-sized sea snails, marine gastropod mollusks in the superfamily Conoidea.Bouchet P. & Rocroi J.-P. (Ed.) (2005). "Classification and nomenclator of gastropod families". ''Malacologia'' 47(1-2). . 39 ...
.
Description
The length of the shell attains 9.25 mm; its diameter 3.75 mm.
(Original description) The small, rather acute shell has a dull, ashy, worn appearance. The
sculpture is faint, as if obsolete, although quite perfectly preserved. The shell contains eight or nine whorls. The protoconch contains two and a half whorls. These are yellowish, with their sculpture reticulated by raised revolving lines, and lines waved backward from before and behind a point on the periphery. The spiral sculpture of the remainder of the shell consists of twelve or (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 ...
) fourteen rounded ribs, which start at the anterior border of the band. There are from three to six secondaries between the primary threads, and all, both secondaries and primaries, are ill defined and barely elevated above the surface. On the smaller whorls there are eight or ten transverse swellings extending from the edge of the notch-band to the suture, too wide and ill defined to call ribs, and chiefly evident as oblique waves most prominent at the anterior edge of the band. On the body whorl these are barely evident as ten or twelve faint nodules just before the band and wholly obsolete before the periphery. The whorl and the
aperture taper imperceptibly into the short
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 ...
, with about seven spiral threads distinguishable as larger than the secondaries. The
anal sulcus The anal sulcus, also called the anal sinus or anal canal, in Gastropods is a notch, a shelly tube at the top of the aperture
In optics, an aperture is a hole or an opening through which light travels. More specifically, the aperture and fo ...
is moderate. The indistinct suture is appressed. The outer
lip is thin, simple and moderately produced forward in the middle. The
columella is short, twisted, with a thin white glaze on it. The siphonal canal is distinctly recurved.
Distribution
''P. elusiva'' can be found in Caribbean waters, ranging from the
Yucatan to
Puerto Rico.
[Tunnell, John W., Jr., Felder, Darryl L., & Earle, Sylvia A., eds. ''Gulf of Mexico Origin, Waters, and Biota, Volume 1: Biodiversity.'' Texas A&M University Press, 2009. 668.]
References
* Rosenberg, G., F. Moretzsohn, and E. F. García. 2009. ''Gastropoda (Mollusca) of the Gulf of Mexico'', Pp. 579–699 in Felder, D.L. and D.K. Camp (eds.), Gulf of Mexico–Origins, Waters, and Biota. Biodiversity. Texas A&M Press, College Station, Texas.
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Pleurotomella Elusiva
elusiva
Gastropods described in 1881