Kingdom Animalia Class Gastropoda Family Muricidae Scientific name Pagodula echinata | Phylum Mollusca Superfamily Muricoidea Subfamily Pagodulinae Rank Species | |
Similar Trophonopsis, Muricopsis cristata, Muricopsis, Ocinebrina, Ocenebra erinaceus | ||
Pagodula echinata is a species of sea snail, a marine gastropod mollusk in the family Muricidae, the murex snails or rock snails.
Contents
Synonyms
Trophon carinatus var. depressa Locard, 1897
Trophon carinatus var. elongata Locard, 1897
Taxonomy
The names Trophon carinatus and Trophon vaginatus, established for fossils, have been used during much of the 19th and 20th century to designate the Recent species now validly known as Pagodula echinata.
Description
The hyaline, white shell has a fusiformshape. Its length measures up to 25 mm but generally no more than 15 mm. The small protoconch is smooth and consists of little more than one whorl. The teleoconch contains 6-7 whorls bearing a very strong median keel and delicate, foliated varixes (6-9 on the body whorl) forming elongated projections at their intersection with the keel. There is no other spiral sculpture is present. The outer lip simple, with a peripheral projection terminating the keel. The siphonal canal is long and delicate, widely open.
The taxonomy of deep-water forms related to this species is unsettled (see comments in Bouchet & Warén, 1985); some of these correspond to the nominal species Pagodula cossmani (Locard, 1897) which differs in lacking long projections along the shoulder which is not so pronounced, and in having spiral cords below the shoulder in a pattern recalling Trophonopsis barvicensis (Johnston, 1825).
Distribution
This marine species occurs in the Eastern Atlantic, from the Bay of Biscay to Morocco; in the Mediterranean Sea, usually in 100–300 m depth. Gorringe seamount, moderately common in 330–830 m, but not found on the other Lusitanian seamounts.