| Penion chathamensis | |
|---|---|
 | |
| A shell of Penion chathamensis | |
Scientific classification  | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Mollusca |
| Class: | Gastropoda |
| Subclass: | Caenogastropoda |
| Order: | Neogastropoda |
| Family: | Austrosiphonidae |
| Genus: | Penion |
| Species: | P. chathamensis |
| Binomial name | |
| Penion chathamensis (Powell, 1938) | |
| Synonyms | |
Penion chathamensis is a species of very large predatory sea snail or whelk, a marine gastropod mollusc in the family Austrosiphonidae. [2]
Penion chathamensis is a very large species of Penion siphon whelk. [3] Although P. chathamensis has separate sexes, the species does not appear to exhibit secondary sexual dimorphism in shell shape or size. [4]
A separate species, Penion fairfieldae was formerly recognised, but recent genetic data has demonstrated that the species is indistinguishable from Penion chathamensis. [1] Shells originally recognised as P. fairfieldae can be distinguished from P. chathamensis using shell size, but not using shell shape. [1]
Penion chathamensis is endemic to New Zealand. [3] [4] [5] The species is distributed off of the west coast of the South Island, and occurs on Chatham Rise and in waters surrounding the Chatham Islands [3] [4] [5] The latter location is the type locality, giving rise to the binomial name of the species. [3]
