''Protatlanta souleyeti'' is a

species In biology, a species is the basic unit of classification and a taxonomic rank of an organism, as well as a unit of biodiversity. A species is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate s ...

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

holoplankton Holoplankton are organisms that are plankton, planktic (they live in the water column and cannot swim against a current) for their entire life cycle. Holoplankton can be contrasted with meroplankton, which are planktic organisms that spend part of ...

marine Marine is an adjective meaning of or pertaining to the sea or ocean. Marine or marines may refer to: Ocean * Maritime (disambiguation) * Marine art * Marine biology * Marine debris * Marine habitats * Marine life * Marine pollution Military * ...

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 ...

Atlantidae Atlantidae is a family of sea snails, holoplanktonic gastropod molluscs in the clade Littorinimorpha. According to taxonomy of the Gastropoda by Bouchet & Rocroi (2005) the family Atlantidae has no subfamilies. Description The Atlantidae is a ...

. ''Protatlanta souleyeti'' is the type species on the genus ''Protatlanta''. It is considered to be the only Recent species on the genus. The

specific name Specific name may refer to: * in Database management systems, a system-assigned name that is unique within a particular database In taxonomy, either of these two meanings, each with its own set of rules: * Specific name (botany), the two-part (bino ...

''souleyeti'' is in honor of French malacologist

Louis François Auguste Souleyet Louis François Auguste Souleyet (8 January 1811 – 7 October 1852) was a French zoologist, malacologist and naval surgeon. Souleyet was naturalist-surgeon on the voyage of ''La Bonite'', which circumnavigated the globe between February 1836 and ...

Description

The maximum recorded

shell Shell may refer to: Architecture and design * Shell (structure), a thin structure ** Concrete shell, a thin shell of concrete, usually with no interior columns or exterior buttresses ** Thin-shell structure Science Biology * Seashell, a hard ou ...

length is 2 mm.Welch J. J. (2010). "The "Island Rule" and Deep-Sea Gastropods: Re-Examining the Evidence". '' PLoS ONE'' 5(1): e8776. . Some of the fossil specimens preserve a pinkish colour of the larval shells. The protoconch is naticoid in shape and has approximately 3¼ whorls. Most specimens have two thin spirals above the periphery, visible in apical view, and a third such spiral below the periphery, which separates the base of the protoconch and becomes covered by subsequent whorls. The described ornament can be fairly constant, but some specimens were found in which these three spirals are lacking. Richter (1968, p. 17, fig. 6c) described Recent larval shells from the

Gulf of Naples The Gulf of Naples (), also called the Bay of Naples, is a roughly 15-kilometer-wide (9.3 mi) gulf located along the south-western coast of Italy (province of Naples, Campania region). It opens to the west into the Mediterranean Sea. It i ...

as smooth. For Recent material from near Hawaii, Seapy (1990, p. 114, fig. 4A-D) also stated that the first whorls are smooth. But Batten & Dumont (1976, figs. 39-41) and Richter & Seapy (1999, p. 633, fig. 5A) and Janssen (2007) have described two protoconch morphologies. On the teleoconch whorls, the peripheral belt on which the

conchiolin Conchiolins (sometimes referred to as conchins) are complex proteins which are secreted by a mollusc's outer epithelium (the mantle). These proteins are part of a matrix of organic macromolecules, mainly proteins and polysaccharides, that assem ...

keel was attached is very clear. Growth lines are strongly bent backward on this belt, indicating the presence of a deep sinus on the apertural margin. A very faint spiral striation is visible all over the adult shell surface.

Distribution

The first fossil specimens of ''Protatlanta souleyeti'' from

Cainozoic The Cenozoic ( ; ) is Earth's current geological era, representing the last 66million years of Earth's history. It is characterised by the dominance of mammals, birds and flowering plants, a cooling and drying climate, and the current configura ...

has been found from

Pliocene The Pliocene ( ; also Pleiocene) is the epoch in the geologic time scale that extends from 5.333 million to 2.58Anda, Pangasinan Anda, officially the Municipality of Anda ( pag, Baley na Anda; ilo, Ili ti Anda; tgl, Bayan ng Anda), is a 3rd class municipality in the province of Pangasinan, Philippines. According to the 2020 census, it has a population of 41,548 people. ...

, Luzon, Philippines in 2001 (published in 2007).

Habitat

Minimum recorded depth is 0 m. Maximum recorded depth is 0 m.

References

This article incorporates CC-BY-3.0 text from the reference {{Taxonbar, from=Q3139421 Atlantidae Gastropods described in 1888