Kingdom Animalia Clade Vetigastropoda Family Trochidae Scientific name Gibbula ardens Rank Species | Phylum Mollusca Superfamily Trochoidea Genus Gibbula Higher classification Gibbula | |
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Similar Gibbula umbilicaris, Gibbula, Gibbula varia, Jujubinus striatus, Gibbula divaricata | ||
Gibbula ardens is a species of small sea snail, known as top snails or top shells, marine gastropod molluscs in the family Trochidae, the top snails.
Contents
Description
The shell of an adult Gibbula ardens can be as large as 8–16 millimetres (0.31–0.63 in). The solid, umbilicate shell has a depressed conic shape with a variable sculpture. Its color is quite variable, but usually is reddish or olive brown, with a subsutural series of short white flammules, a row of white spots on the periphery, the remainder of the surface sparsely punctate with white. The spire is acute. The sutures are markedly canaliculate. The whorls (about 7) are convex and spirally lirate. Their interstices are obliquely regularly crispate-striate. The 5 or 6 lirae on the penultimate whorl are frequently grooved, and usually with lirulae between them. The base of the shell contains about 8 principal concentric lirae. The oblique aperture is smooth within, but apparently sulcate. The columella is subdentate in the middle. The umbilicus is funnel-shaped and is bordered by a white rib.
Distribution and habitat
This common species occurs in the Mediterranean Sea and the Adriatic Sea in the seagrass prairies of Posidonia oceanica; on the Atlantic coast of Portugal.