''Calliostoma brunneum'', common name the Tejedor top shell, 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 Calliostomatidae.
Description
The maximum recorded
shell length is 32 mm.
[Welch J. J. (2010). "The "Island Rule" and Deep-Sea Gastropods: Re-Examining the Evidence". '' PLoS ONE'' 5(1): e8776. .]
The large, solid shell is depressed. It contains five to seven
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.
It is light brown with a few touches of white transverse to the whorls on the carina. The umbilical rib is white. The nucleus and interior walls of the
umbilicus is dark brown. Several of the spiral grooves above and below are marked by a darker brown than the rest, and appear as brown lines.
(Original description by W.H. Dall) The
sculpture above, on the nuclear whorls, consists of close-set sharp longitudinal grooves with the ridges between them rounded and more or less beaded or nodulous. They are crossed by more or less evident lines of growth, which, however, are not necessarily coincident with the beading where present. The grooves continue, but do not seem to increase in number, while all sculpture disappears from between them. The interspaces are smooth and flat and only marked by very light lines of growth. The carina is separated from the rest of the whorl by a squarish shallow gutter, somewhat too broad to be termed a groove. The base of the shell rounds up over the periphery so that the most angular edge of the carina is at the top . The base between is flat and rounded, marked by evanescent (partly brown) grooves and transversely by delicate flexuous slightly raised aggregations of the lines of growth at somewhat regular intervals. These slightly crenate the umbilical rib on its inner edge and perhaps form the pronounced, slightly backwardly flexed, striae and ridges which mark the umbilical walls. There is hardly any
callus on the body wall at the
aperture, which is broken in the specimens at hand. Its form has been made out from the lines of growth. The
suture in the later whorls is closely appressed, the carinal gutter would at first sight be taken for it. The first two and a half whorls are solidly filled with translucent shelly matter.
Dall, W. H. 1881. Reports on the results of dredging, under the supervision of Alexander Agassiz, in the Gulf of Mexico, and in the Caribbean Sea, 1877–79, by the United States Coast Survey Steamer 'Blake,'. Bulletin of the Museum of Comparative Zoology 9: 33–144
(described as ''Fluxina brunnea'')
Distribution
This species occurs in the Gulf of Mexico, the Caribbean Sea and the Lesser Antilles.
Habitat
Minimum recorded depth is 23 m.
References
* Dall, W. H. 1881. R''eports on the results of dredging, under the supervision of Alexander Agassiz, in the Gulf of Mexico, and in the Caribbean Sea, 1877–79, by the United States Coast Survey Steamer 'Blake,'.'' Bulletin of the Museum of Comparative Zoology 9: 33–144.
* Aguayo, C. G. 1949. ''Tres nuevos moluscos marinos de las costas de Cuba''. Revista de la Sociedad Malacológica "Carlos de la Torre" 6: 93–96, pl. 4
* 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:Calliostoma Brunneum
brunneum
Gastropods described in 1881