Spirotropis phaeacra

Spirotropis phaeacra is a species of sea snail, a marine gastropod mollusk in the family Drilliidae.[2]

Spirotropis phaeacra
Original image of a shell of Spirotropis phaeacra
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Mollusca
Class: Gastropoda
Subclass: Caenogastropoda
Order: Neogastropoda
Superfamily: Conoidea
Family: Drilliidae
Genus: Spirotropis
Species:
S. phaeacra
Binomial name
Spirotropis phaeacra
(Watson, 1881) [1]
Synonyms[2]
  • Drillia phaeacra (Watson, 1881)
  • Pleurotoma phaeacra (Watson, 1881)
  • Pleurotoma (Bela) phaeacra (Watson, 1881)
  • Pleurotoma (Drillia) phaeacra Watson, 1881 (basionym)

Description

The shell of this micromollusc grows to a length of 4.6 mm.

(Original description) The conical, angulated, tubercled shell is thin, polished, glassy, with a blunt, dun apex, a contracted base, and a longish columella. There is no longitudinal sculpture other than the fine scratch-like lines of growth. Toward the bottom of each whorl is a row of about twelve round, blunt-tipped, rather prominent tubercles, which form an angulated keel where otherwise there is no carination. There is also a slight blunt keel round the base. Its surface is covered with very obsolete, rounded, flat threads. The colour of the shell is polished glassy white, with a hyaline dun apex. The spire is high, rather narrow, and conical. Its profile-lines are little interrupted by the carinal tubercles. The protoconch consists of about two glossy, dun-coloured, globose, embryonic whorls. The extreme tip is rounded and slightly bent down on one side. The shell contains 6 short whorls of slow growth, with a longish, drooping, somewhat concave shoulder, angulated below the middle by the row of tubercles, and slightly contracted into the inferior suture. The base, which is a good deal contracted, is conical, and runs out into a fine longish snout. The aperture is club-shaped, being somewhat pointedly rhomboidal above, with a longish siphonal canal below. The outer lip is thin, with a pretty regular convex curve, which is flattened at the summit, and prolonged in a straightish line at the siphonal canal. On leaving the body it retreats at once, leaving a very small shelf above the sinus, which is shaped like an open U with diverging margins: toward the lower part of the aperture the lip runs out in a pinion-shaped projection, retreating thence to the point of the columella. The inner lip is thin and narrow, a little concave, with a loug sharp-edged truncation of the point of the columella.[3]

Distribution

This species occurs in the Atlantic Ocean off Northeast Brazil at a depth of 630 m.

References

  • "Spirotropis monterosatoi". Gastropods.com. Retrieved 6 November 2011.
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