''Comitas obtusigemmata'' is a

species In biology, a species is the basic unit of Taxonomy (biology), classification and a taxonomic rank of an organism, as well as a unit of biodiversity. A species is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of ...

of sea snail, a

marine Marine is an adjective meaning of or pertaining to the sea or ocean. Marine or marines may refer to: Ocean * Maritime (disambiguation) * Marine art * Marine biology * Marine debris * Marine habitats * Marine life * Marine pollution Military * ...

gastropod mollusc in the

family Family (from la, familia) is a group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or affinity (by marriage or other relationship). The purpose of the family is to maintain the well-being of its members and of society. Idea ...

Pseudomelatomidae Pseudomelatomidae is a family of predatory sea snails, marine gastropods included in the superfamily Conoidea (previously Conacea) and part of the Neogastropoda ( Bouchet & Rocroi, 2005). In 1995 Kantor elevated the subfamily Pseudomelatominae ...

, the turrids and allies.MolluscaBase (2018). Comitas obtusigemmata (Schepman, 1913). Accessed through: World Register of Marine Species at: http://www.marinespecies.org/aphia.php?p=taxdetails&id=433357 on 14 June 2018

Description

The length of the shell attains 22.5 mm, its diameter 9.5 mm. (Original description) The thin shell is broadly fusiform, with a pyramidal

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. Spires are ...

and a rather long, slender

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 ...

. Its color is yellowish grey. The

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 calle ...

of the largest specimen is wanting,. The 6 remaining

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). Whorls in nature File:Photograph and axial plane flo ...

s are not very convex, but apparently so by a row of coarse, obtuse, rounded beads, near the base of upper whorls and the periphery of the body whorl, where they are 14 in number; a second row of small tubercles, rounded in upper whorls, having the character of oblique folds on lower ones, runs just below the deep suture, on a subsutural rib. The lower on the shell is lirate, 2 faint lirae in the interstices of the peripheral beads, 2 strong ones below the beads of the body whorl and numerous fainter ones on the base and the siphonal canal. The shell is covered with very fine growth lines. The body whorl is strongly attenuated below. The

aperture In optics, an aperture is a hole or an opening through which light travels. More specifically, the aperture and focal length of an optical system determine the cone angle of a bundle of rays that come to a focus in the image plane. An ...

is oval, angular above, ending in a rather long, narrow siphonal canal below. The peristome is thin, with a wide, rather shallow sinus above, then strongly protracted. The columellar margin is rather straight, directed to the left near and along the siphonal canal, with a thin layer of white enamel.Schepman, 1913. The prosobranchia of the Siboga expedition. Part IV -V - VI: Toxoglossa

Distribution

This marine species occurs in the

Arafura Sea The Arafura Sea (or Arafuru Sea) lies west of the Pacific Ocean, overlying the continental shelf between Australia and Western New Guinea (also called Papua), which is the Indonesian part of the Island of New Guinea. Geography The Arafura Sea i ...

and in the

South China Sea The South China Sea is a marginal sea of the Western Pacific Ocean. It is bounded in the north by the shores of South China (hence the name), in the west by the Indochinese Peninsula, in the east by the islands of Taiwan and northwestern Phil ...

References

External links

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Biolib.cz: ''Comitas obtusigemmata''
{{Taxonbar, from=Q3721819 obtusigemmata Gastropods described in 1913