''Africotriton crebriliratus'' 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 ...

in the

family Family (from ) is a Social group, group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or Affinity (law), affinity (by marriage or other relationship). It forms the basis for social order. Ideally, families offer predictabili ...

Cancellariidae Cancellariidae, common name the nutmeg snails or nutmeg shells, are a family (biology), family of small to medium-large sea snails, marine (ocean), marine gastropod mollusks in the clade Neogastropoda. Some of the shells of the species in this ...

, the nutmeg snails.

Description

The length of the shell attains 14 mm, its diameter 5 mm. (Original description) The shell is narrowly oblong, with a fulvous hue. It is faintly banded and variegated with brown, becoming pearly white at the

apex The apex is the highest point of something. The word may also refer to: Arts and media Fictional entities * Apex (comics) A-Bomb Abomination Absorbing Man Abraxas Abyss Abyss is the name of two characters appearing in Ameri ...

. 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 elongately acuminated, slightly convex at the sides. There are 5½ whorls, with the first 1½ whorls smooth and shining, and the subsequent whorls rather convex, irregularly plicate, and varicose. The shell is spirally finely grooved, and the suture is scarcely impressed. 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 oblong, with rather straight sides and a very short rostrum at the base. 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 rather wide in the middle and narrow at each end. The

columella Lucius Junius Moderatus Columella (, Arabic: ) was a prominent Roman writer on agriculture in the Roman Empire. His in twelve volumes has been completely preserved and forms an important source on Roman agriculture and ancient Roman cuisin ...

is covered with a thin white callus that stands erect over the umbilical region, slightly and irregularly pustulate. 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 short, narrow, and slightly recurved. Sowerby, G. B. III. (1903). Mollusca of South Africa. Marine Investigations in South Africa. 2(3): 213-232, pls 3-5

Distribution

This marine species occurs off

Port Alfred Port Alfred is a small town with a population of just under 26,000 in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa. It is situated on the eastern seaboard of the country at the mouth of the Kowie River, almost exactly halfway between the larger ci ...

, South Africa.

References

* Beu, A. G.; Maxwell, P. A. (1987). A revision of the fossil and living gastropods related to Plesiotriton Fischer, 1884 (Family Cancellariidae, Subfamily Plesiotritoninae n. subfam.). With an appendix: Genera of Buccinidae Pisaniinae related to Colubraria Schumacher, 1817. New Zealand Geological Survey Paleontological Bulletin. 54: 1-140. * Steyn, D. G.; Lussi, M. (2005). Offshore Shells of Southern Africa: A pictorial guide to more than 750 Gastropods. Published by the authors. pp. i–vi, 1–289. * Hemmen, J. (2007). Recent Cancellariidae. Annotated and illustrated catalogue of Recent Cancellariidae. Privately published, Wiesbaden. 428 pp * Verhecken A. (2020). New and poorly known species of Cancellariidae (Neogastropoda: Cancellarioidea) from the Indian Ocean and the western Pacific. Gloria Maris. 59(2): 40-89.

External links

Conchology.be: image
{{DEFAULTSORT:Africotriton Crebriliratus crebriliratus Gastropods described in 1903