''Curtitoma hebes'' is a species of sea snail, a marine gastropod

mollusk 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 es ...

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 ...

Mangeliidae Mangeliidae is a monophyletic family of small to medium-sized, predatory sea snails, marine gastropod mollusks in the superfamily Conoidea. Bouchet, P. (2011). Mangeliidae P. Fischer, 1883. In: MolluscaBase (2016). Accessed through: World Reg ...

Description

The length of the shell varies between 6 mm and 9 mm. (Original description) The shell has a short-fusiform or subovate shape, with a short, blunt

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 with five or six convex, but slightly angled or carinated

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, which have a slightly flattened subsutural band. The suture is impressed and slightly channelled. The sculpture shows numerous small, regular, raised, spiral ridges, separated by wider grooves. Usually one, just below the subsutural band, is stronger and more raised, forming a slight carina. On the subsutural band they are faint, or indistinct. The spiral lines are often decussated, more or less, by equally slender, transverse, raised riblets, coincident with the lines of growth, but not uniformly present. These may produce a slightly cancellated structure, on all the whorls, and extend as curved riblets, across the subsutural band. The whorls of 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 ...

are not preserved in any of the holotype specimens. 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 short and narrow-ovate. The outer

lip The lips are the visible body part at the mouth of many animals, including humans. Lips are soft, movable, and serve as the opening for food intake and in the articulation of sound and speech. Human lips are a tactile sensory organ, and can be ...

is expanded below the suture, then regularly rounded and thin. The posterior sinus is broad and shallow. The straight

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 very short and rather broad. The

columella Lucius Junius Moderatus Columella (; Arabic: , 4 – ) was a prominent writer on agriculture in the Roman Empire. His ' in twelve volumes has been completely preserved and forms an important source on Roman agriculture, together with the ...

is sigmoid and regularly incurved. The epidermis is thin and greenish white. Verrill, A. E. 1882. Catalogue of marine Mollusca added to the fauna of the New England region, during the past ten years. Transactions of the Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences 5: 451–587, pls. 42–44, 57–58
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Distribution

This species is amphiboreal and occurs in the Northwest Atlantic Ocean and the

Gulf of Maine , image = , alt = , caption = , image_bathymetry = GulfofMaine2.jpg , alt_bathymetry = , caption_bathymetry = Major features of the Gulf of Maine , location = Northeast coast of the ...

; also reported from the

Sea of Japan The Sea of Japan is the marginal sea between the Japanese archipelago, Sakhalin, the Korean Peninsula, and the mainland of the Russian Far East. The Japanese archipelago separates the sea from the Pacific Ocean. Like the Mediterranean Sea, it h ...

; found at depths between 100 m and 1320 m.

References

* Verrill, A.E. (1880) ''Notice on recent additions to the marine Invertebrata of the northeastern coast of America, with descriptions of new genera and species and critical remarks on others.'' Proceedings of the United States National Museum, 3: 356–405 * Brunel, P.; Bosse, L.; Lamarche, G. (1998). ''Catalogue of the marine invertebrates of the estuary and Gulf of St. Lawrence''. Canadian Special Publication of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences, 126. 405 p.

External links

Tucker, J.K. 2004 ''Catalog of recent and fossil turrids (Mollusca: Gastropoda)''. Zootaxa 682: 1–1295.
*
Gulbin, Vladimir V. "Review of the Shell-bearing Gastropods in the Russian Waters of the East Sea (Sea of Japan). III. Caenogastropoda: Neogastropoda." The Korean Journal of Malacology 25.1 (2009): 51–70
hebes Gastropods described in 1880 {{Mangeliidae-stub