''Comitas rotundata'' is a species of

sea snail Sea snail is a common name for slow-moving marine gastropod molluscs, usually with visible external shells, such as whelk or abalone. They share the taxonomic class Gastropoda with slugs, which are distinguished from snails primarily by the ...

, 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 The gastropods (), commonly known as snails and slugs, belong to a large taxonomic class of invertebrates within the phylum Mollusca called Gastropoda (). This class comprises snails and slugs from saltwater, from freshwater, and from land. T ...

mollusc Mollusca is the second-largest phylum of invertebrate animals after the Arthropoda, the members of which are known as molluscs or mollusks (). Around 85,000 extant species of molluscs are recognized. The number of fossil species is esti ...

in the family

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 Pseudomelatomina ...

.WoRMS (2015). Comitas rotundata. In: MolluscaBase (2015). Accessed through: World Register of Marine Species at http://www.marinespecies.org/aphia.php?p=taxdetails&id=433367 on 2017-02-04

Description

(Original description) The shell is high, narrow, fusiform and conical. It has rounded

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 floral ...

s and a shallow suture, below which the inferior whorl swells out tumidly. The

body whorl The body whorl is part of the morphology of the 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. In gastropods In gastropods, the b ...

is short and rounded, with a constricted conical base and a long narrow aperture. Sculpture: Longitudinals— there are strongish, close-set, rounded, hair-like lines of growth, specially strong below the suture. Spirals – over the whole surface are strong, but unequal, rather distant, sharpish threads. Those in the sutural area are, with two or three exceptions, weaker than those elsewhere. About three at the periphery are somewhat prominent. The colour of the shell is porcelain-white under a thin yellow epidermis. The sutureis fine, superficial, but well defined. The aperture is club-shaped, being oval, with a long narrow

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 is ...

below and a blunt angulation above. The outer lip is very evenly curved, but a little more steeply above than below.;It is drawn out into a long straight line along the side of the siphonal canal. The edge-line, on leaving the body, retreats very straight toward the left to the rather remote, wide, and openly rounded, but very deep sinus, between which and the body whorl lies an acute triangular shelf, while below is the very high shouldered and prominent lip. The inner lip is exceptionally narrow, but strong and marginated. It is very little concave at the junction of the body and the columella, which is long, narrow, and is cut off at the point with a long, little oblique, sharp, and scarcely twisted edge. Report on the scientific results of the voyage of H.M.S. Challenger during the years 1873-76 under the command of Captain George S. Nares ... and the late Captain Frank Tourle Thomson, R.N.; Zoology vol. 15 (1886)

Distribution

This species occurs in the Mid-Pacific, east of

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

References

* R.B. Watson, 1886; Preliminary Report on the Scaphopoda and Gasteropoda collected by the H. M. S. Challenger during the years 1873–76; Journal of the Linnean Society of London vol. XV p. 399 * A.W.B. Powell, 1966, 969. The family Turridae in the Indo-Pacific. Pt. 2. The subfamily Turriculinae. IndoPacific Mollusca 2 (10): 207–414 * R.N. Kilburn, Turridae (Mollusca: Gastropoda) of southern Africa and Mozambique. Part 3. Subfamily Borsoniinae; Ann. Natal Mus. Vol. 27(2), December 1986

External links

* {{Taxonbar, from=Q3719972 rotundata Gastropods described in 1881