''Moelleriopsis abyssicola'' is a

species A species () is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate sexes or mating types can produce fertile offspring, typically by sexual reproduction. It is the basic unit of Taxonomy (biology), ...

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 ...

, a marine

gastropod Gastropods (), commonly known as slugs and snails, belong to a large Taxonomy (biology), taxonomic class of invertebrates within the phylum Mollusca called Gastropoda (). This class comprises snails and slugs from saltwater, freshwater, and fro ...

mollusk Mollusca is a phylum of protostomic invertebrate animals, whose members are known as molluscs or mollusks (). Around 76,000 extant species of molluscs are recognized, making it the second-largest animal phylum after Arthropoda. The ...

unassigned in the

superfamily SUPERFAMILY is a database and search platform of structural and functional annotation for all proteins and genomes. It classifies amino acid sequences into known structural domains, especially into SCOP superfamilies. Domains are functional, str ...

Seguenzioidea Seguenzioidea is a family (biology), superfamily of sea snails, marine (ocean), marine gastropod mollusks in the clade Vetigastropoda.Gofas, S. (2010). Seguenzioidea. In: Bouchet, P.; Gofas, S.; Rosenberg, G. (2010) World Marine Mollusca database ...

Description

(Original description by Bush) The shell grows to a length of 3.2 mm. The small shell is opaque white, under a golden brown epidermis. It contains few convex

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). In nature File:Photograph and axial plane floral diagra ...

s (the tip is broken away) forming a well-elevated

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 ...

and large

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 ...

. The surface is lustrous where rubbed, ornamented with a single conspicuous carina which defines a broad, flattened sutural area and makes the whorls slightly angulated. This is roughened by the crossing of the growth lines, which are elsewhere inconspicuous. On the base surrounding the

umbilicus Umbilicus may refer to: *The navel or belly button *Umbilicus (mollusc), a feature of gastropod, Nautilus and Ammonite shell anatomy *Umbilicus (plant), ''Umbilicus'' (plant), a genus of over ninety species of perennial flowering plants *Umbilicus ...

there are also four more prominent carina, about equal in size and evenly separated by wide, slightly concave interspaces. The first one is situated about the middle of the base, and the last one well up in the umbilicus. On all of these, the lines of growth are so conspicuous as to give them a distinctly beaded appearance. At their termination they form distinct points on the somewhat expanded thin edge of the

peristome Peristome (from the Greek language, Greek ''peri'', meaning 'around' or 'about', and ''stoma'', 'mouth') is an anatomical feature that surrounds an opening to an organ or structure. Some plants, fungi, and shelled gastropods have peristomes. In mo ...

. 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 ...

within is dull, opaque white, with a narrow, much thinner, semi-transparent, somewhat expanded, sharp-edged border. This gives the appearance of thickening, but there is no raised opaque white line, said by some author to be the distinguishing character of ''

Moelleria ''Moelleria'' is a genus of sea snails, marine gastropod mollusks in the family Colloniidae Colloniidae is a family of small sea snails with calcareous opercula, marine gastropod mollusks in the clade Vetigastropoda Vetigastropoda is a ...

''.Transactions of the Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences, vol. 10, 1899–1900
/ref>

Distribution

This species is distributed in the Northwest Atlantic Ocean.

References

* Abbott, R.T. (1974). ''American Seashells.'' 2nd ed. Van Nostrand Reinhold: New York, NY (USA). 663 pp

External links

* {{Taxonbar, from=Q3174382 abyssicola Gastropods described in 1897