Details - Notes on shell morphology and classification of the Siliquariidae (Gastropoda) : the protoconch and slit of Siliquaria squamata Blainville

Notes on shell morphology and classification of the Siliquariidae (Gastropoda)

Title

Notes on shell morphology and classification of the Siliquariidae (Gastropoda) : the protoconch and slit of Siliquaria squamata Blainville

Title Variants

Alternative: Protoconch and slit of Siliquaria squamata Blainville

Related Titles

Series: American Museum novitates, no. 2263

By

Gould, Stephen Jay.

Type

Book

Material

Published material

Publication info

New York, N.Y, American Museum of Natural History, [1966]

Notes

Title from caption.

"August 18, 1966."

"More than 100 individuals of the curious slit worm-snail Siliquaria squamata Blainville were found embedded in a single sponge dredged from a depth of 300-400 fathoms in waters southeast of St. David's Light, Bermuda, on July 12, 1964."

"Siliquaria, described for the first time, is 0.25 mm. wide, helically coiled, and has a sinuous aperture, whereas that of the other two siliquariid genera is 1 mm. wide and planispiral, with a circular aperture. Protoconch form can no longer be used as the chief diagnostic familial characteristic as proposed by Morton (1951). The siliquariid slit is analogous in form, but not in function, to the selenizone of slit-bearing archaeogastropods. Since the siliquariid slit is much longer than that of archaeogastropods, the morphology of slit healing differs. To prevent lateral filling of the slit by growth increments running longitudinally along the slit toward the slit-healing lamina, such increments are either not deposited or else run underneath, rather than in the same surface, as in their predecessors"--P. 11-12.