A spire is a part of the coiled

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mollusc Mollusca is a phylum of protostome, protostomic invertebrate animals, whose members are known as molluscs or mollusks (). Around 76,000 extant taxon, extant species of molluscs are recognized, making it the second-largest animal phylum ...

s. The spire consists of all of the whorls except for the body whorl. Each spire whorl represents a rotation of 360°. A spire is part of the shell of a

snail A snail is a shelled gastropod. The name is most often applied to land snails, terrestrial molluscs, terrestrial pulmonate gastropod molluscs. However, the common name ''snail'' is also used for most of the members of the molluscan class Gas ...

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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 ...

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gastropod shell 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 ...

, and also the whorls of the shell in

ammonite Ammonoids are extinct, (typically) coiled-shelled cephalopods comprising the subclass Ammonoidea. They are more closely related to living octopuses, squid, and cuttlefish (which comprise the clade Coleoidea) than they are to nautiluses (family N ...

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fossil A fossil (from Classical Latin , ) is any preserved remains, impression, or trace of any once-living thing from a past geological age. Examples include bones, shells, exoskeletons, stone imprints of animals or microbes, objects preserve ...

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cephalopod A cephalopod is any member of the molluscan Taxonomic rank, class Cephalopoda (Greek language, Greek plural , ; "head-feet") such as a squid, octopus, cuttlefish, or nautilus. These exclusively marine animals are characterized by bilateral symm ...

s. In textbook illustrations of gastropod shells, the tradition (with a few exceptions) is to show most shells with the spire uppermost on the page. The spire, when it is not damaged or eroded, includes the protoconch (also called the nuclear whorls or the larval shell), and most of the subsequent teleoconch whorls (also called the postnuclear whorls), which gradually increase in area as they are formed. Thus the spire in most gastropods is pointed, the tip being known as the " apex". The word "spire" is used, in an analogy to a church spire or rock spire, a high, thin, pinnacle. The "spire angle" is the angle, as seen from the apex, at which a spire increases in area. It is an angle formed by imaginary lines tangent to the spire. Some gastropod shells have very high spires (the shell is much higher than wide), some have low spires (the shell is much wider than high), and there are all possible grades between. In a few gastropod families the shells are not helical in their coiling, but instead are planispiral, flat-coiled. In these shells, the spire does not have a raised point, but instead is sunken. Snails with high spires tend to prefer vertical surfaces while those with low spires prefer horizontal surfaces. This is thought to aid in reducing competition between high and low-spired species in a habitat. Snails with middle-height spires show little preference to surface angle. Gastropod shells that are not spirally coiled (for example shells of

limpet Limpets are a group of aquatic snails with a conical gastropod shell, shell shape (patelliform) and a strong, muscular foot. This general category of conical shell is known as "patelliform" (dish-shaped). Existing within the class Gastropoda, ...

s) have no columella.

Decollated shells

In some species as high-spired shells become adult the soft parts of the animal cease to occupy the upper parts of the cavity of the shell. The space thus vacated is sometimes filled with solid shell, as in '' Magilus''; or it is partitioned off, as in '' Vermetus'', '' Euomphalus'', '' Turritella'', Triton or '' Caecum''. The empty apex in these shells is sometimes very thin, and becomes brittle. In some species it breaks away, leaving the shell truncated or decollated. Decollated shells usually have the whorls of the spire closely wound and not increasing much in diameter. A typical example is the decollate snail (''Rumina decollata'').

The form of a shell

The form of the shell of a gastropod is usually regular in coiling, and is normally a cone curved into a spiral, and descending in a screw-like manner from the apex or initial whorl to the aperture. The shell grows in a regular geometrical progression in its normal pattern, although these modes vary among themselves widely. Thus we have the simple depressed cone of '' Patella'', all aperture and no spire. From it there is every gradation, from the '' Haliotis'', almost equally depressed and broad, the result, however, of a very rapidly enlarging spiral, to the long, many-whorled '' Turritella'' or '' Vermetus'', which is a ''Turritella'' partially unrolled into a simple long tube — the opposite of the ''Patella''.

Different types of spire

''See also'' : Gastropod shell#Shape of the shell * Turbinoform or Turbinate: having a broadly conical spire and a convex base, as in ''

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'', turban-shaped. * Turriform: with a many-whorled, slender spire, as in '' Turritella''.

Chirality

In most spiral shells the spire normally curves to the right, that is to say, placing the shell with its apex turned upward from the observer and its aperture in view : the aperture will be on the right hand side. In others the volutions proceed in the opposite direction with such regularity as to be eminently characteristic of some species and genera ('' Physa'', '' Clausilia'', etc.). However, in certain genera, it is found that species normally dextral will exceptionally produce sinistrally coiled shells, and vice versa. This abnormal growth probably is caused by disturbance of the relations of the embryo with its initial shell. George Washington Tryon, Structural and systematic conchology, p.40; 1884

References

{{Gastropod anatomy Mollusc shells Gastropod anatomy Cephalopod zootomy