''Buccinum leucostoma'', commonly known as the yellow-mouth buccinum, 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 ...

Buccinidae The Buccinidae are a very large and diverse taxonomic family of large sea snails, often known as whelks or true whelks.Bouchet, P.; Gofas, S. (2010). Buccinidae. In: Bouchet, P.; Gofas, S.; Rosenberg, G. (2010) World Marine Mollusca database. Ac ...

, the true whelks.

Description

The size of the shell of an adult varies between 55 mm and 120 mm. The snail's

salivary gland The salivary glands in many vertebrates including mammals are exocrine glands that produce saliva through a system of ducts. Humans have three paired major salivary glands ( parotid, submandibular, and sublingual), as well as hundreds of min ...

s contains the toxin tetramine (tetramethylammonium ion). The male shell tends to be smaller and more slender than the female shell. The interior 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 ...

in male specimens is characterised by a reddish orange colour, while in female specimens it is whitish or yellowish.Tiba Ranzi, ''Sexual dimorphism in some species of Buccinidae''; The malacological society of Japan, 11(2–3), 87–94, 1941-11-25, 1941
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Distribution

This species is found in the Pacific Ocean off the coasts of

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

References

External links

* Buccinidae Gastropods described in 1872 Marine gastropods {{Buccinidae-stub