''Nihonia australis'', commonly named the Australian turrid, 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), ...

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 ...

Cochlespiridae Cochlespiridae is a taxonomic family of predatory sea snails, marine gastropod mollusks in the superfamily Conoidea. This family is not well differentiated morphologically, and there is poor congruence between the molecular and shell characters. ...

. The name ''Nihonia australis'' has often been attributed to Gmelin (1791:3542), as a result of a confusion between ''Murex australis'' Gmelin, 1791 ''Pelicaria vermis'' (Martyn, 1784)and ''Pleurotoma australis'' Roissy, 1805 ''Nihonia australis''

Description

The size of an adult shell varies between 70 mm and 95 mm. The elongate-fusiform shell is yellowish white, encircled by raised, corded orange-brown ribs, with several intermediate striae. The blunt

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 called " ...

contains 1½ -2 whorls. The

teleoconch The gastropod shell is part of the body of many gastropods, including snails, a kind of mollusc. The shell is an exoskeleton, which protects from predators, mechanical damage, and dehydration, but also serves for muscle attachment and calcium ...

contains 9½ -10 whorls. The outer

lip The lips are a horizontal pair of soft appendages attached to the jaws and are the most visible part of the mouth of many animals, including humans. Mammal lips are soft, movable and serve to facilitate the ingestion of food (e.g. sucklin ...

is broadly rounded above into the rather shallow sinus. The long, 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 i ...

is unnotched.Indo-Pacific Mollusca; Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia. Delaware Museum of Natural History v. 2 no. 9–10 (1968–1969)
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Distribution

This marine species occurs off

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

and

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...

References

* Roissy (1805), Hist. Nat. Moll. Anim.. s.Vert, et sang, blanc. vol. 69, livraison 32, book 6, p. 72 * Valenciennes (1846), Atlas Voy. Venus, pl..5, f. 3. (non Lamarck, 1816). * Casey (1904) Trans. Acad. Sci. St. Louis, vol. 14, no. 5, p. 151. * Otuka (1959) Venus, vol. 20, no. 3, p. 246. * Liu J.Y. uiyu(ed.). (2008). ''Checklist of marine biota of China seas''. China Science Press. 1267 pp.

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Nihonia Australis australis Gastropods described in 1805