Microtis tuberculata

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Microtis tuberculata
Microtis tuberculata 001.jpg
Drawing with two views of the animal and the shell of Microtis tuberculata
Scientific classification Red Pencil Icon.png
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Mollusca
Class: Gastropoda
Clade: Vetigastropoda
Order: Trochida
Superfamily: Trochoidea
Family: Trochidae
Genus: Microtis
Species:
M. tuberculata
Binomial name
Microtis tuberculata
A. Adams, 1850
Synonyms [1]
  • Microtis heckeliana(Crosse, 1871)
  • Stomatia planulataSchepman, 1908

Microtis tuberculata is a species of sea snail, a marine gastropod mollusk in the family Trochidae, the top snails. [1] [2]

In biology, a species ( ) is the basic unit of classification and a taxonomic rank of an organism, as well as a unit of biodiversity. A species is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate sexes or mating types can produce fertile offspring, typically by sexual reproduction. Other ways of defining species include their karyotype, DNA sequence, morphology, behaviour or ecological niche. In addition, paleontologists use the concept of the chronospecies since fossil reproduction cannot be examined. While these definitions may seem adequate, when looked at more closely they represent problematic species concepts. For example, the boundaries between closely related species become unclear with hybridisation, in a species complex of hundreds of similar microspecies, and in a ring species. Also, among organisms that reproduce only asexually, the concept of a reproductive species breaks down, and each clone is potentially a microspecies.

Sea snail common name for snails that normally live in saltwater

Sea snail is a common name for snails that normally live in salt water, in other words marine gastropods. The taxonomic class Gastropoda also includes snails that live in other habitats, such as land snails and freshwater snails. Many species of sea snails are edible and exploited as food sources by humans.

Family is one of the eight major hierarchical taxonomic ranks in Linnaean taxonomy; it is classified between order and genus. A family may be divided into subfamilies, which are intermediate ranks between the ranks of family and genus. The official family names are Latin in origin; however, popular names are often used: for example, walnut trees and hickory trees belong to the family Juglandaceae, but that family is commonly referred to as being the "walnut family".

Contents

Description

The size of the shell varies between 9 mm and 20 mm. The shell is much depressed, the spire reaches only a trifle above the body whorl. The colour is variable; in both specimens a greenish-grey colour predominates. In the largest one, the top whorls are variegated with crimson and a large patch of the same colour occupies the upper part of the body whorl, near the aperture. The upper part is covered by microscopic spiral rows of darker arrowhead-shaped spots, the basal part is more yellowish. The shell contains about 3½ whorls. The last whorl increases rapidly. They are very convex, with a deep suture, and short subsutural folds. The sculpture consists of a keel at some distance from the suture, enclosing a concave zone, and another keel near the periphery. Between these keels runs a row of elongated, slightly oblique tubercles. Moreover the whole shell is covered with fine spiral striae and still finer growth-striae. The aperture is very oblique, its upper margin concave near the body whorl, then strongly convex.

Spire (mollusc)

A spire is a part of the coiled shell of molluscs. The spire consists of all of the whorls except for the body whorl. Each spire whorl represents a rotation of 360°. A spire is part of the shell of a snail, a gastropod mollusc, a gastropod shell, and also the whorls of the shell in ammonites, which are fossil shelled cephalopods.

Body whorl

The body whorl is part of the morphology of the shell in those gastropod mollusks that possess a coiled shell. The term is also sometimes used in a similar way to describe the shell of a cephalopod mollusk.

Whorl (mollusc)

A whorl is a single, complete 360° revolution or turn in the spiral growth of a mollusc shell. A spiral configuration of the shell is found in of numerous gastropods, but it is also found in shelled cephalopods including Nautilus, Spirula and the large extinct subclass of cephalopods known as the ammonites.

The animal is large. The upper surface of the foot is granular and tuberculate, with three epipodial cirri, of which the third is placed on the detachable part of the foot. [3]

Distribution

This marine species occurs in the Indo-West Pacific, Oceania, Indo-Malaysia and Australia (Northern Territory, Queensland, Western Australia)

Northern Territory federal territory of Australia

The Northern Territory is an Australian territory in the central and central northern regions of Australia. It shares borders with Western Australia to the west, South Australia to the south, and Queensland to the east. To the north, the territory looks out to the Timor Sea, the Arafura Sea and the Gulf of Carpentaria, including Western New Guinea and other Indonesian islands. The NT covers 1,349,129 square kilometres (520,902 sq mi), making it the third-largest Australian federal division, and the 11th-largest country subdivision in the world. It is sparsely populated, with a population of only 246,700, making it the least-populous of Australia's eight states and major territories, with fewer than half as many people as Tasmania.

Queensland North-east state of Australia

Queensland is the second-largest and third-most populous state in the Commonwealth of Australia. Situated in the north-east of the country, it is bordered by the Northern Territory, South Australia and New South Wales to the west, south-west and south respectively. To the east, Queensland is bordered by the Coral Sea and Pacific Ocean. To its north is the Torres Strait, with Papua New Guinea located less than 200 km across it from the mainland. The state is the world's sixth-largest sub-national entity, with an area of 1,852,642 square kilometres (715,309 sq mi).

Western Australia State in Australia

Western Australia is a state occupying the entire western third of Australia. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, and the Southern Ocean to the south, the Northern Territory to the north-east, and South Australia to the south-east. Western Australia is Australia's largest state, with a total land area of 2,529,875 square kilometres, and the second-largest country subdivision in the world, surpassed only by Russia's Sakha Republic. The state has about 2.6 million inhabitants – around 11 percent of the national total – of whom the vast majority live in the south-west corner, 79 per cent of the population living in the Perth area, leaving the remainder of the state sparsely populated.

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References

  1. 1 2 Bouchet, P. (2012). Microtis tuberculata. Accessed through: World Register of Marine Species at http://www.marinespecies.org/aphia.php?p=taxdetails&id=547310 on 2012-11-23
  2. ↑ Poppe G.T., Tagaro S.P. & Dekker H. (2006) The Seguenziidae, Chilodontidae, Trochidae, Calliostomatidae and Solariellidae of the Philippine Islands. Visaya Supplement 2: 1-228.
  3. ↑ Schepman 1908-1913, The Prosobranchia of the Siboga Expedition; Leyden,E. J. Brill,1908-13 (described as Stomatia planulata)
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