''Busycon'' is a

genus Genus (; : genera ) is a taxonomic rank above species and below family (taxonomy), family as used in the biological classification of extant taxon, living and fossil organisms as well as Virus classification#ICTV classification, viruses. In bino ...

of very large edible

sea snail Sea snails are slow-moving marine (ocean), marine gastropod Mollusca, molluscs, usually with visible external shells, such as whelk or abalone. They share the Taxonomic classification, taxonomic class Gastropoda with slugs, which are distinguishe ...

s in the

subfamily In biological classification, a subfamily (Latin: ', plural ') is an auxiliary (intermediate) taxonomic rank, next below family but more inclusive than genus. Standard nomenclature rules end botanical subfamily names with "-oideae", and zo ...

Busyconinae The Busyconinae are taxonomic subfamily of large sea snails, often known as whelk Whelks are any of several carnivorous sea snail species with a swirling, tapered shell. Many are eaten by humans, such as the common whelk of the North Atla ...

. These snails are commonly known in the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

as ''

whelk Whelks are any of several carnivorous sea snail species with a swirling, tapered shell. Many are eaten by humans, such as the common whelk of the North Atlantic. Most whelks belong to the family Buccinidae and are known as "true whelks." Othe ...

s'' or ''Busycon whelks''. Less commonly they are loosely, and somewhat misleadingly, called "

conch Conch ( , , ) is a common name of a number of different medium-to-large-sized sea snails. Conch shells typically have a high Spire (mollusc), spire and a noticeable siphonal canal (in other words, the shell comes to a noticeable point on both ...

s".Bouchet, P. (2015). Busycon Röding, 1798. In: MolluscaBase (2015). Accessed through: World Register of Marine Species at http://www.marinespecies.org/aphia.php?p=taxdetails&id=160183 on 2015-12-03 ''Busycon'' comes from the

Greek Greek may refer to: Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor of all kno ...

''bousykon'' meaning ''large fig'', from ''bous'' meaning ''

cow Cattle (''Bos taurus'') are large, domesticated, bovid ungulates widely kept as livestock. They are prominent modern members of the subfamily Bovinae and the most widespread species of the genus '' Bos''. Mature female cattle are called co ...

'' and ''sykon'' meaning '' fig''.

Shell description

Shells of species in this genus can grow to a length of 40 cm. The shell is pyriform. The

body whorl The body whorl is part of the morphology (biology), morphology of the gastropod shell, 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 ...

is large, nodulous or spinose. The

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. Spire ...

is very short. The

aperture In optics, the aperture of an optical system (including a system consisting of a single lens) is the hole or opening that primarily limits light propagated through the system. More specifically, the entrance pupil as the front side image o ...

is large and subtriangular. 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 i ...

is open, elongated, entire at the fore part. The inner

lip The lips are a horizontal pair of soft appendages attached to the jaws and are the most visible part of the mouth of many animals, including humans. Mammal lips are soft, movable and serve to facilitate the ingestion of food (e.g. sucklin ...

is concave, with a single fold anteriorly. The outer lip is internally striated. The shells are generally a solid

cream Cream is a dairy product composed of the higher-fat layer skimmed from the top of milk before homogenization. In un-homogenized milk, the fat, which is less dense, eventually rises to the top. In the industrial production of cream, this proces ...

, light grey or tan in color, however the shell of the lightning whelk is marked with brown and white streaks. The shell of individuals can sometimes vary quite widely in coloration and

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 ...

Behavior

Busycon whelks are

scavengers Scavengers are animals that consume dead organisms that have died from causes other than predation or have been killed by other predators. While scavenging generally refers to carnivores feeding on carrion, it is also a herbivorous feeding ...

and

carnivores A carnivore , or meat-eater (Latin, ''caro'', genitive ''carnis'', meaning meat or "flesh" and ''vorare'' meaning "to devour"), is an animal or plant whose nutrition and energy requirements are met by consumption of animal tissues (mainly mu ...

, equipped with a

proboscis A proboscis () is an elongated appendage from the head of an animal, either a vertebrate or an invertebrate. In invertebrates, the term usually refers to tubular arthropod mouthparts, mouthparts used for feeding and sucking. In vertebrates, a pr ...

tipped with a file-like

radula The radula (; : radulae or radulas) is an anatomical structure used by mollusks for feeding, sometimes compared to a tongue. It is a minutely toothed, chitinous ribbon, which is typically used for scraping or cutting food before the food enters ...

used to bore holes through the shells of

barnacle Barnacles are arthropods of the subclass (taxonomy), subclass Cirripedia in the subphylum Crustacean, Crustacea. They are related to crabs and lobsters, with similar Nauplius (larva), nauplius larvae. Barnacles are exclusively marine invertebra ...

clam Clam is a common name for several kinds of bivalve mollusc. The word is often applied only to those that are deemed edible and live as infauna, spending most of their lives halfway buried in the sand of the sea floor or riverbeds. Clams h ...

crabs Crabs are decapod crustaceans of the infraorder Brachyura (meaning "short tailed" in Greek), which typically have a very short projecting tail-like abdomen, usually hidden entirely under the thorax. Their exoskeleton is often thickened and ha ...

, and

lobster Lobsters are Malacostraca, malacostracans Decapoda, decapod crustaceans of the family (biology), family Nephropidae or its Synonym (taxonomy), synonym Homaridae. They have long bodies with muscular tails and live in crevices or burrows on th ...

s. They have a large, muscular foot with which they hold their victims. Small

shark Sharks are a group of elasmobranch cartilaginous fish characterized by a ribless endoskeleton, dermal denticles, five to seven gill slits on each side, and pectoral fins that are not fused to the head. Modern sharks are classified within the ...

gull Gulls, or colloquially seagulls, are seabirds of the subfamily Larinae. They are most closely related to terns and skimmers, distantly related to auks, and even more distantly related to waders. Until the 21st century, most gulls were placed ...

crab Crabs are decapod crustaceans of the infraorder Brachyura (meaning "short tailed" in Greek language, Greek), which typically have a very short projecting tail-like abdomen#Arthropoda, abdomen, usually hidden entirely under the Thorax (arthropo ...

s, and other gastropods are known to feed upon them. The knobbed whelk, '' Busycon carica'', is the second-largest species, growing up to 30 cm long. They have

tubercle In anatomy, a tubercle (literally 'small tuber', Latin for 'lump') is any round nodule, small eminence, or warty outgrowth found on external or internal organs of a plant or an animal. In plants A tubercle is generally a wart-like projectio ...

s (spines) along the shoulder. They open clams with their muscular foot and insert their long proboscis to digest the flesh. The knobbed whelk is a common predator of the

foreshore The intertidal zone or foreshore is the area above water level at low tide and underwater at high tide; in other words, it is the part of the littoral zone within the tidal range. This area can include several types of Marine habitat, habitats ...

mudflats Mudflats or mud flats, also known as tidal flats or, in Ireland, slob or slobs, are coastal wetlands that form in intertidal areas where sediments have been deposited by tides or rivers. A global analysis published in 2019 suggested that tidal ...

as far offshore as 50 m.

Eggs

Strings of Busycon whelk egg capsules commonly wash ashore and desiccate, becoming brittle. These objects are sometimes called ''mermaid's necklaces'' because they resemble a large necklace strung with medallion-shaped egg pouches. Each pouch of the string contains numerous

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 " ...

s (baby whelks), similar in appearance to adults but with fewer whorls and less sculpture.

Human use

When used for cooking in the United States, busycon whelks are sometimes called ''scungilli'', an

Italian-American Italian Americans () are Americans who have full or partial Italians, Italian ancestry. The largest concentrations of Italian Americans are in the urban Northeastern United States, Northeast and industrial Midwestern United States, Midwestern ...

adaptation of the Neapolitan ''sconciglio'' which means the meat of a (usually edible) sea snail.

Species

The genus ''Busycon'' contains the following species:list of Busycon species at malacolog.org
/ref> * '' Busycon carica'' (Gmelin, 1791) - Knobbed whelk * ''

Busycon contrarium ''Sinistrofulgur contrarium'' is a fossil snail species of the busycon whelks in the family Busyconidae. There has been some confusion about the correct taxonomy of this species, which has been confused with the extant species '' Sinistrofulgur ...

'' (Conrad, 1840) † ;Species brought into synonymy: * ''Busycon (Sinistrofulgur) aspinosum'' Hollister, 1958: synonym of '' Sinistrofulgur sinistrum'' (Hollister, 1958) * ''Busycon (Sinistrofulgur) perversum'' (

Linnaeus Carl Linnaeus (23 May 1707 – 10 January 1778), also known after ennoblement in 1761 as Carl von Linné,#Blunt, Blunt (2004), p. 171. was a Swedish biologist and physician who formalised binomial nomenclature, the modern system of naming o ...

1758 Events January–March * January 1 – Swedish biologist Carl Linnaeus (Carl von Linné) publishes in Stockholm the first volume (''Animalia'') of the 10th edition of ''Systema Naturae'', the starting point of modern zoologic ...

): synonym of '' Sinistrofulgur perversum'' (

) * ''Busycon (Sinistrofulgur) sinistrum'' Hollister, 1958: synonym of '' Sinistrofulgur sinistrum'' (Hollister, 1958) * ''Busycon amoenum'' Conrad, 1875: synonym of '' Brachysycon amoenum'' (Conrad, 1875) † * ''Busycon blakei'' Conrad, 1855 †: synonym of '' Pseudoperissolax blakei'' (Conrad, 1855) † * ''Busycon candelabrum''

Lamarck Jean-Baptiste Pierre Antoine de Monet, chevalier de Lamarck (1 August 1744 – 18 December 1829), often known simply as Lamarck (; ), was a French naturalist, biologist, academic, and soldier. He was an early proponent of the idea that biolo ...

, 1816 - Splendid whelk: synonym of '' Lindafulgur candelabrum'' (Lamarck, 1816) * ''Busycon coarctatum'' (Sowerby I, 1825): synonym of '' Busycoarctum coarctatum'' (G.B. Sowerby I, 1825) * ''Busycon laeostomum'' Kent, 1982 - Snow whelk: synonym of '' Sinistrofulgur laeostomum'' (Kent, 1982) * ''Busycon lindajoyceae'' Petuch, 1991 †: synonym of '' Lindafulgur lindajoyceae'' (Petuch, 1991) † * '' Busycon lyonsi'' Petuch, 1987: synonym of '' Lindafulgur lyonsi'' (Petuch, 1987) * ''Busycon muricatum'' Röding, 1798: synonym of '' Busycon carica'' (Gmelin, 1791) * ''Busycon perversum'' - Lightning whelk: synonym of '' Sinistrofulgur perversum'' (

) * ''Busycon plagosum'' Conrad, 1862: synonym of '' Fulguropsis plagosa'' (Conrad, 1863) * ''Busycon pulleyi'' - Prickly whelk: synonym of '' Sinistrofulgur pulleyi'' (Hollister, 1958) * ''Busycon sinistrum'' Hollister, 1958: synonym of '' Sinistrofulgur sinistrum'' (Hollister, 1958) The following species have been moved from ''Busycon'' to the genus ''Busycotypus'' * '' Busycotypus canaliculatus'' (

)

Channeled whelk ''Busycotypus canaliculatus'', commonly known as the channeled whelk, is a very large predatory sea snail, a marine prosobranch gastropod, a busycon whelk, belonging to the family Busyconidae.Fraussen, K.; Rosenberg, G. (2012). Busycotypus canal ...

. ''Busycotypus canaliculatus'', is slightly smaller than the knobbed whelk, and has a smooth shell with a deep square channel which is continuous on all the whorls, just below the suture of the shell.

References

Röding P. F. (1798). Museum Boltenianum sive Catalogus cimeliorum e tribus regnis naturae quae olim collegerat Joa. Fried. Bolten M. D. p. d. Pars secunda continens Conchylia sive Testacea univalvia, bivalvia et multivalvia
{{Authority control Gastropod genera Busyconinae Taxa named by Peter Friedrich Röding