Cominella quoyana quoyana

Taxobox
name = "Cominella quoyana quoyana"


status =
regnum = Animalia
phylum = Mollusca
classis = Gastropoda
subclassis = Prosobranchia
ordo = Sorbeoconcha
familia = Buccinidae
genus = "Cominella"
species = "C. quoyana quoyana"
binomial = "Cominella quoyana quoyana"
binomial_authority = A. Adams, 1854

"Cominella quoyana quoyana" is a predatory sea snail, a marine gastropod mollusc in the family Buccinidae, the true whelks.

Distribution

This species is endemic to New Zealand, found around the northern half of the North Island.

Habitat

This whelk is found from low tide to depths of 45 m.

hell description

The shell is small, narrowly ovate, with a rather tall turreted spire. The whorls have a narrow concave shoulder sulcus, and have strongly sculptured rounded axial costae, 12 or 13 per whorl, extending from suture to suture, and over the base, but sometimes weak to obsolete on the lower base. The surface is microscopically densely spirally lirate, as well as with regular distant fine incised spiral lines.

The shell coloration is buff, with the thin brown spiral lines coinciding with the linear incisions, four on the spire whorls and eight or nine on the body whorl. The interior of the aperture is white, and the outer lip edge and anterior fasciole often tinged with pinkish-brown.

The shell height is up to 21.5 mm, and the width is up to 11 mm.clear

References

* Powell A. W. B., "New Zealand Mollusca", William Collins Publishers Ltd, Auckland, New Zealand 1979 ISBN 0-00-216906-1