Rictaxis punctocaelatus

Rictaxis punctocaelatus
Shell of Rictaxis punctocaelatus
Scientific classification
Domain:	Eukaryota
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Mollusca
Class:	Gastropoda
Subclass:	Heterobranchia
Superfamily:	Acteonoidea
Family:	Acteonidae
Genus:	Rictaxis
Species:	R. punctocaelatus
Binomial name
Rictaxis punctocaelatus (Carpenter, 1864)
Synonyms [1]
Acteon punctocaelatus(P. P. Carpenter, 1864) Acteon punctocaelatus vancouverensisI. S. Oldroyd, 1927 † Acteon punctocaelatus var. coronadensisStearns, 1899 Tornatella punctocaelataP. P. Carpenter, 1864 (original combination)

Rictaxis punctocaelatus, common name Barrel shell or Carpenter's baby bubble, is a species of sea snail, a marine gastropod mollusc in the family Acteonidae. ^[1]

Description

The length of the shell attains 10 mm, its diameter 4.5 mm.

The oblong shell has a large, conoidal spire. It is white with two alternating broad ashy or brown zones. The outer lip and the columellar folds are whitish. The shell contains five convex whorls, separated by impressed and narrowly channelled sutures. The surface is sculptured throughout with spiral equidistant conspicuously punctate grooves, the raised intervals smooth except for a fine engraved line along the middle of each. There are about 26 grooves on the body whorl. The aperture measures two-fifths to two-thirds of the length of the shell. The ovate columella is strongly twisted with a spiral fold above and is obliquely truncated at base. The base of the shell is rounded. ^[2]

Distribution

This species occurs in the Pacific Ocean off the western coasts of Canada, USA and Mexico; also in the Atlantic Ocean off Brazil.

Fossils have been found in Pliocene strata in San Diego Bay.

References

1. WoRMS. "Rictaxis punctocaelatus (P. P. Carpenter, 1864)". World Register of Marine Species . Retrieved 2 April 2024.
2. G.W. Tryon, (1893) - Manual of conchology, structural and systematic : with illustrations of the species ser;1 vol. 15; Philadelphia, Published by the Author, Academy of Natural Sciences, 1879-1898 This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain .

• Turgeon, D., Quinn, J. F., Bogan, A. E., Coan, E. V., Hochberg, F. G., Lyons, W. G., Mikkelsen, P. M., Neves, R. J., Roper, C. F. E., Rosenberg, G., Roth, B., Scheltema, A., Thompson, F. G., Vecchione, M., Williams, J. D. (1998). Common and scientific names of aquatic invertebrates from the United States and Canada: mollusks. 2nd ed. American Fisheries Society Special Publication, 26. American Fisheries Society: Bethesda, MD (USA). ISBN 1-888569-01-8. IX, 526 + cd-rom pp
• Gosliner T.M. (1996). The Opisthobranchia. In: Taxonomic Atlas of the Benthic Fauna of the Santa Maria Basin and Western Santa Barbara Channel. The Mollusca Part 2 – The Gastropoda. Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History. volume 9: 161-213.

External links

• Carpenter, P. P. (1864). Supplementary report on the present state of our knowledge with regard to the Mollusca of the West Coast of North America. Reports of the British Association for the Advancement of Science. (1863) 33: 517-686.
• Stearns, R. E. C. (1899). Description of a species of Actaeon from the Quaternary bluffs at Spanish Bight, San Diego, California. Proceedings of the United States National Museum. 21: 297–299, 1 fig
• Oldroyd, I. S. (1927). The marine shells of the west coast of North America. Stanford University Publications in Geological Sciences. Volume 2, part 1, pp. 1-298, 29 pls
• Valdés A. (2019). Northeast Pacific benthic shelled sea slugs. Zoosymposia. 13: 242-304.
• Pacific Coast nudibranchs, Supplement II. New species to the Pacific Coast and new information on the oldies. Proceedings of the California Academy of Sciences (4) 55(2): 11–54