Turbo saxosus

Turbo saxosus
Drawing with an apertural view of a shell of Turbo saxosus
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Mollusca
Class: Gastropoda
Clade: Vetigastropoda
Superfamily: Trochoidea
Family: Turbinidae
Genus: Turbo
Species: T. saxosus
Binomial name
Turbo saxosus
Wood, 1828
Synonyms
  • Turbo (Callopoma) saxosus W. Wood, 1828
  • Turbo mitzschii Anton, 1838
  • Turbo nitzschii Anton, 1839
  • Turbo venustus Philippi, 1845

Turbo saxosus, common name the stony turban, is a species of sea snail, marine gastropod mollusk in the family Turbinidae.[1]

Description

The length of the shell varies between 20 mm and 54 mm. The imperforate shell has an ovate-conic shape. Its color pattern is brown, olive or gray, above radiately marked, below irregularly maculated with snowy white, sometimes dark, unicolored. The conic spire is acute. The suture is canaliculate. The 5-6 whorls are lamellosely densely striate and spirally irregularly lirate. They are carinated, usually more or less nodose at the shoulder, and bear a subsutural series of stout erect tubercles. The rounded aperture measures half the length of the shell. It is white and iridescent within. The arched columella is callous, concave. It has a deep semilunar longitudinal groove and is slightly produced at its base.

The operculum is rounded oval, flat and dark chestnut inside, with four or five whorls and a subcentral nucleus. Its outer surface is convex, white, middle portion coarsely granulose, with a deep narrow central pit, bounded by a deep concentric farrow not continuous over the margin of increment, outside of which are three narrow minutely beaded concentric ridges. The margin of increment is granulose.

It is an extremely variable species. Frequently several tuberculate lirae encircle the base. And in this strongly nodose variety the incremental striae are usually inconspicuous. In another form the spiral lirae are not noticeably tuberculate. [2]

Distribution

This species occurs in the Pacific Ocean from Panama to Peru.

References

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