Tonna cumingii

Taxobox
name = "Tonna cumingi"


image_caption =
regnum = Animalia
phylum = Mollusca
classis = Gastropoda
ordo = Neotaenioglossa
familia = Tonnidae
genus = "Tonna"
species = "T. cumingi"
binomial = "Tonna cumingi"
binomial_authority = (Reeve, 1849)

"Tonna cumingi" is a large species of sea snail or tun snail, a marine gastropod mollusc in the family Tonnidae, the tun shells.

Distribution

This species is found often along the southern coasts of India and Sri Lanka. Populations of animals with similar looking shells from New Zealand and Australian waters have been assimilated to this species. Occasional records indicate a possible presence of the species in Philippine waters. Further study on this species should reveal its exact distribution. (Reference: Vos, 2007 A conchological Iconography - Family Tonnidae)

hell description

This globose shell is shaped similarly to "Tonna tankervillii", but slightly narrower, and without a canaliculate suture. The spiral corrugations are separated by deep linear grooves, except on the shoulder area, where there is an occasional intermediate spiral thread.

The shell coloration is variable, sometimes distantly spirally banded in dark reddish-brown on a pale yellowish-buff or light brown ground, the brown bands with regular whitish rectangular patches, each with a smear of dark-brown in front, or the whole shell may be dark reddish-brown, relieved by pale rectangular patches, that resolve into distant, flexuous, axial series. The interior of the aperture is usually light reddish-brown, fading to whitish at the outer-lip, and there dotted with dark brown, corresponding with the interspaces of the external corrugations.

The shell height is up to 91 mm, and width up to 66 mm.

References

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