Kingdom Animalia Class Gastropoda Superfamily Trochoidea Rank Species | Phylum Mollusca Clade Vetigastropoda Family Trochidae | |
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Clanculus thomasi is a species of sea snail, a marine gastropod mollusk in the family Trochidae, the top snails.
Contents
Description
The size of the shell varies between 5 mm and 15 mm. The umbilicate shell has a conic-globose shape. It is maculate with white on a ground of reddish carmine. The five whorls are convex. They are spirally traversed by five very finely granulose lirae, the first two small, third larger, fourth small, fifth larger than the others. The suture is profoundly impressed and canaliculate. The body whorl contains 8 lirae on the base encircling the umbilicus. The columella is unequally bidentate. The basal tooth is larger and compressed. The lip at the base is obsoletely denticulate, elsewhere edentulous. The oblique aperture is less ringent than most species of Clanculus. The fauces (i.e. the part of the interior of a spiral shell that can be viewed by looking into the aperture) is sulcate and nacreous. The umbilicus is white, in young shells smooth, in adults obsoletely crenulated.
A variety is olivaceous green, maculate with white, the apex rosy. It is a small species, with very prominent, compressed basal tooth, and slight crenulations at the margin of the umbilicus, the right lip not dentate.
Distribution
This marine species occurs off New Caledonia and Lord Howe Island.