Kingdom Animalia Clade Vetigastropoda Family Turbinidae Scientific name Astralium rhodostomum Rank Species | Class Gastropoda Superfamily Trochoidea Genus Astralium Phylum Mollusca | |
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Similar Astralium, Astralium latispina, Lithopoma americanum, Astralium semicostatum, Lithopoma brevispina | ||
Astralium rhodostomum, common name the rosemouth star shell, is a species of sea snail, a marine gastropod mollusk in the family Turbinidae, the turban snails.
Contents
Description
The length of the shell varies between 16 mm and 55 mm. This thick-shelled species stands near to Lithopoma caelatum (Gmelin, 1791), but is distinguished by the following characters: the whorls are flat, not arched, in the middle. The superior nodules are situated near to the suture. They are hemi-spherical and solid. The body whorl has but a single row of nodules. The carina is sharper, the base flatter, with only three concentric nodose lirae. The aperture is lower and more rhomboidal . The color pattern is reddish brown, more or less verging on violet.
Distribution
This species occurs in the Indo-West Pacific and off East India, the Philippines and Australia (Northern Territory, Queensland, Western Australia)