''Buchema bellula'' 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), ...
of
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 ...
of
Horaiclavidae
Horaiclavidae is a family of predatory 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, taxonomi ...
.
It was formerly included within the family
Turridae
Turridae is a Taxonomy (biology), taxonomic family (biology), family name for a number of predatory sea snails, Marine (ocean), marine gastropod mollusks in the superfamily Conoidea.MolluscaBase (2018). Turridae H. Adams & A. Adams, 1853 (1838). ...
.
[Rosenberg, G. (2015). Buchema bellula (E. A. Smith, 1882). In: MolluscaBase (2015). Accessed through: World Register of Marine Species at http://www.marinespecies.org/aphia.php?p=taxdetails&id=532470 on 2017-01-04]
Description
The size of the fusiform shell varies between 6 mm and 8.5 mm, its diameter is 3.4 mm. The shell contains 8 whorls of which the first two in the protoconch. The aperture spans about ⅓ of the whole length. The sinus is of mediocre size. The siphonal canal is very short and recurved to the left. The white band encircling the whorls includes three of the spiral lirations which are thickened upon the obsolete ribs. In fact, each rib might be said to be composed of the thickening of the lirae.
Smith, E.A. (1882) Diagnoses of new species of Pleurotomidae in the British Museum. Annals and Magazine of Natural History, series 5, 10, 206–218
/ref>
Distribution
This marine species occurs in the Caribbean Sea off Guadeloupe
Guadeloupe is an Overseas departments and regions of France, overseas department and region of France in the Caribbean. It consists of six inhabited islands—Basse-Terre Island, Basse-Terre, Grande-Terre, Guadeloupe, Grande-Terre, Marie-Galant ...
, Saint Vincent and Aruba
Aruba, officially the Country of Aruba, is a constituent island country within the Kingdom of the Netherlands, in the southern Caribbean Sea north of the Venezuelan peninsula of Paraguaná Peninsula, Paraguaná and northwest of Curaçao. In 19 ...
References
External links
Tucker, J.K. 2004 ''Catalog of recent and fossil turrids (Mollusca: Gastropoda)''. Zootaxa 682:1–1295.
Fallon, Phillip J , Descriptions and illustrations of some new and poorly known turrids of the tropical northwestern Atlantic. Part 1. Genera Buchema Corea, 1934 and Miraclathurella Woodring, 1928 (Gastropoda: Turridae: Crassispirinae); Nautilus 124, 2010
*
Specimen at MNHN, Paris
bellula
Gastropods described in 1882
{{Horaiclavidae-stub