''Comitas trailli'' 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 ...

s, 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 ...

, the turrids and allies.MolluscaBase (2018). Comitas trailli (Hutton, 1873). Accessed through: World Register of Marine Species at: http://marinespecies.org/aphia.php?p=taxdetails&id=433375 on 2018-06-10

Description

The length of the shell attains 28 mm, its diameter 10 mm. The fusiform shell has an acute spire. The

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 are slightly carinated with fine spiral lines and transverse ribs anteriorly. The posterior part is smooth. The aperture is ovate. 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 ...

is rather produced. The body whorl is shorter than the spire.Hutton F. W. 1873. ''Catalogue of the Tertiary Mollusca and Echinodermata of New Zealand, in the collection of the Colonial Museum''. Didsbury, Government Printer, Wellington. xvi + 48 pp
/ref>

Distribution

This marine species is

endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also found els ...

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 List of islands of New Zealand, smaller islands. It is the ...

and occurs off

South Island The South Island, also officially named , is the larger of the two major islands of New Zealand in surface area, the other being the smaller but more populous North Island. It is bordered to the north by Cook Strait, to the west by the Tasma ...

where fossils have been found in

Tertiary Tertiary ( ) is a widely used but obsolete term for the geologic period from 66 million to 2.6 million years ago. The period began with the demise of the non- avian dinosaurs in the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event, at the start ...

strata.

References

* Maxwell, P.A. (2009). Cenozoic Mollusca. pp. 232–254 in Gordon, D.P. (ed.) New Zealand inventory of biodiversity. Volume one. Kingdom Animalia: Radiata, Lophotrochozoa, Deuterostomia. Canterbury University Press, Christchurch. * Spencer, H.G., Marshall, B.A. & Willan, R.C. (2009). Checklist of New Zealand living Mollusca. pp. 196–219. in: Gordon, D.P. (ed.) New Zealand inventory of biodiversity. Volume one. Kingdom Animalia: Radiata, Lophotrochozoa, Deuterostomia. Canterbury University Press, Christchurch

External links

* * Powell A. W. B., ''New Zealand Mollusca'', William Collins Publishers Ltd, Auckland, New Zealand 1979
Bruce A. Marshall, ''Molluscan and brachiopod taxa introduced by F. W. Hutton in The New Zealand journal of science''; Journal of the Royal Society of New Zealand, Volume 25, Issue 4, 1995

Spencer H.G., Willan R.C., Marshall B.A. & Murray T.J. (2011). Checklist of the Recent Mollusca Recorded from the New Zealand Exclusive Economic Zone

Auckland War Memorial Museum: ''Comitas trailli''
trailli Gastropods described in 1873 Gastropods of New Zealand {{Pseudomelatomidae-stub