Astralium calcar

Astralium calcar
Five views of a shell of Astralium calcar
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Mollusca
Class:	Gastropoda
Subclass:	Vetigastropoda
Order:	Trochida
Superfamily:	Trochoidea
Family:	Turbinidae
Genus:	Astralium
Species:	A. calcar
Binomial name
Astralium calcar (Linnaeus, 1758)
Synonyms [1]
Astralium (Cyclocantha) calcar(Linnaeus, 1758) Astralium (Cyclocantha) laciniatumGould, 1849 Calcar sporioMontfort, 1810 Calcar sporioMontfort, 1810 Trochus stellaLamarck, 1822 Turbo calcarLinnaeus, 1758 (basionym) Turbo lacinatumGould, 1849

Close up apical view of Shell of Astralium calcar (Linnaeus, 1758), measuring 15.9 mm height by 27.7 mm diameter, trawled in deep water in the Philippines.

Astralium calcar is a species of sea snail, a marine gastropod mollusk in the family Turbinidae, the turban snails. ^[1]

Description

The height of the shell is 28 mm, its diameter 40 mm. The conoid shell is more or less depressed at the apex. Its color pattern is grayish-greenish, or brownish-cinereous. The six whorls are flattened above, and radiately plicate, the folds rather unequal and irregular. The periphery is carinate and spinose, bearing about twelve radiating more or less foliated spines on the body whorl. This body whorl descends deeply toward the aperture. The convex base is concentrically more or less densely squamosely lirate, the outer lirae are generally prominent and subspinose, sometimes causing the periphery to appear bicarinate. The aperture is transversely oval, very oblique, generally golden within, and stained with purple or blue on the columella. ^[2]

Distribution

This marine species occurs off the Philippines, Indo-Malaysia and Queensland, Australia.

References

1. Astralium calcar (Linnaeus, 1758) . Retrieved through: World Register of Marine Species  on 7 October 2011.
2. Allmon, W. D., and J. R. Hendricks. 2021. Gastropoda (Revised). In: The Digital Encyclopedia of Ancient Life.

• Linnaeus, C. 1758. Systemae naturae per regna tria naturae, secundum classes, ordines, genera, species, cum characteribus, differetiis, synonymis, locis.v. Holmiae : Laurentii Salvii 824 pp.
• Habe, T. 1964. Shells of the Western Pacific in color. Osaka : Hoikusha Vol. 2 233 pp., 66 pls.
• Hinton, A. 1972. Shells of New Guinea and the Central Indo-Pacific. Milton : Jacaranda Press xviii 94 pp.
• Coleman, N. 1975. What shell is that? Sydney : Lansdowne Press 298 pp.
• Williams, S.T. (2007). Origins and diversification of Indo-West Pacific marine fauna: evolutionary history and biogeography of turban shells (Gastropoda, Turbinidae). Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, 2007, 92, 573–592.