Venustilifer bountyensis

Taxobox
name = "Venustilifer bountyensis"


image_caption =
image_width =
status =
regnum = Animalia
phylum = Mollusca
classis = Gastropoda
subclassis = Orthogastropoda
superordo = Caenogastropoda
ordo = Sorbeoconcha
subordo = Hypsogastropoda
infraordo = Littorinimorpha
familia = Stiliferidae
genus = "Venustilifer"
species = "V. bountyensis"
binomial = "Venustilifer bountyensis"
binomial_authority = (Powell, 1933)

"Venustilifer bountyensis" is a species of deep-water sea snail, a marine gastropod mollusc in the family Stiliferidae.

Distribution

This species is endemic to New Zealand, including the Bounty Islands.

Habitat

This snail is found living on sea urchin tests, at depths of between 310 and 1,540 m.

hell description

The shell is small and subglobose, the body whorl comprising most of the shell, thin semi-transparent and smooth. The protoconch is smooth, narrow and peg-like, with a bluntly rounded tip, set obliquely to the axis of the shell. Empty shells are translucent-white, but living examples from off the Poor Knights Islands are reddish-brown, with a spiral band of translucent pale yellow encircling the shell at above middle whorl height.

Shell height is up to 3.4 mm, and the width is up to 2.6 mm.

References

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