''Stomatella elegans'', common name the elegant stomatella, is a

species In biology, a species is the basic unit of classification and a taxonomic rank of an organism, as well as a unit of biodiversity. A species is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate s ...

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 ...

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 e ...

in the

family Family (from la, familia) is a Social group, group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or Affinity (law), affinity (by marriage or other relationship). The purpose of the family is to maintain the well-being of its ...

Trochidae The Trochidae, common name top-snails or top-shells, are a family of various sized sea snails, marine gastropod molluscs in the subclass Vetigastropoda. This family is commonly known as the top-snails because in many species the shell resembles ...

.MolluscaBase eds. (2021). MolluscaBase. Stomatella elegans Gray, 1847. Accessed through: World Register of Marine Species at: http://www.marinespecies.org/aphia.php?p=taxdetails&id=559693 on 2021-01-04

Description

(Original description by Gray) The height of the shell attains 25 mm. The oblong shell is rather depressed. Its color is white, black-spotted, showing the pearl through the semitransparent outer coat. It is closely and regularly spirally striated and concentrically wrinkled. The small

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 ...

is conical. The 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 are convex. 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 very rapidly enlarging. The oblong

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 opt ...

spreads out twice as wide as the diameter of the last whorl. but one. The columella is less arched, and is flattened. The axis is imperforated. The smooth throat is silvery pearly.G.W. Tryon (1890), Manual of Conchology vol. XII
(described as ''Stomatella elegans'')

Distribution

This marine species occurs in the Northwest Indian Ocean and the Western Pacific; also in the

Great Barrier Reef The Great Barrier Reef is the world's largest coral reef system composed of over 2,900 individual reefs and 900 islands stretching for over over an area of approximately . The reef is located in the Coral Sea, off the coast of Queensland, ...

, Australia.

References

External links

To Biodiversity Heritage Library (1 publication)

To Encyclopedia of Life

To World Register of Marine Species
{{Taxonbar, from=Q13646521 elegans Gastropods described in 1847 Taxa named by John Edward Gray