''Supplanaxis niger'' 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 ...

Planaxidae Planaxidae, commonly called planaxids or clusterwinks, are a Taxonomy (biology), taxonomic family (biology), family of small and minute sea snails, pantropical marine (ocean), marine gastropod molluscs in the superfamily Cerithioidea. They live o ...

.Bouchet, P. (2015). Supplanaxis niger (Quoy & Gaimard, 1833). Accessed through: World Register of Marine Species at http://www.marinespecies.org/aphia.php?p=taxdetails&id=833642 on 2015-04-28

Description

The length of the shell attains 13 mm, its diameter 7.7 mm. (Original description of ''Planaxis abbreviata ogasawarana'' Pilsbry, 1905)) The shell is larger and longer than ''Planaxis abbreviata'' Pease (synonym of ''Supplanaxis niger'' (Quoy & Gaimard, 1833)), ovate-conic, thick and solid, chocolate-brown, the

body whorl The body whorl is part of the morphology (biology), morphology of the gastropod shell, 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 ...

covered with a dull fibrous cuticle. Sculpture of spiral grooves, often weak in the middle of the body whorl, strong below the suture and at the base. The shell contains about 6 convex

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). In nature File:Photograph and axial plane floral diagra ...

s. The

aperture In optics, the aperture of an optical system (including a system consisting of a single lens) is the hole or opening that primarily limits light propagated through the system. More specifically, the entrance pupil as the front side image o ...

is oblique, 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 thickened within, and bearing 11 to 14 lirae, which extend into the throat. The basal and posterior notches are small, deep and rounded.Pilsbry, H. A. (1905). New Japanese marine Mollusca. Proceedings of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia. 57: 101-112 [8 April], 113-122, pls 2-5
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Distribution

This marine species occurs off

Madagascar Madagascar, officially the Republic of Madagascar, is an island country that includes the island of Madagascar and numerous smaller peripheral islands. Lying off the southeastern coast of Africa, it is the world's List of islands by area, f ...

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

Papua New Guinea Papua New Guinea, officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea, is an island country in Oceania that comprises the eastern half of the island of New Guinea and offshore islands in Melanesia, a region of the southwestern Pacific Ocean n ...

References

* Poppe G.T., Tagaro S.P. & Stahlschmidt P. (2015). ''New shelled molluscan species from the central Philippines I''. Visaya. 4(3): 15–59. * Hasegawa K. (2017). Family Planaxidae. pp. 794–795, in: T. Okutani (ed.), Marine Mollusks in Japan, ed. 2. 2 vols. Tokai University Press. 1375 pp.

External links

Quoy, J.C.R. & Gaimard, P. (1833) ''Mollusques''. In Dumont d’Urville, M.J. (Ed.) Voyage de Découverts de l’Astrolabe, Éxécuté par Ordre du Roi Pendant les Années 1826–1827–1828–1829, sous le Commandement de M. J. Dumont d' Urville. Zoologie, Tome 2. J. Tatsu

Smith, E. A. (1872). A list of the species of the genus Planaxis, with descriptions of eleven new species. Annals and Magazine of Natural History. ser. 4, 9: 37-47

Pease, W. H. (1869). Description of new species of marine Gasteropodæ inhabiting Polynesia. American Journal of Conchology. 5: 64-79

Pease, W. H. (1865). Descriptions of new genera and species of marine shells from the islands of the Central Pacific. Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London. (1865): 512-517

Dunker, W. & Zelebor, J. (1866). Bericht über die von der Novara-Expedition mitgebrachten Mollusken. Verhandlungen der Kaiserlich-Königlichen Zoologisch-Botanischen Gesellschaft in Wien. 16: 909-916.
{{Taxonbar, from=Q7200972 Planaxidae Gastropods described in 1833