Euspira pulchella is a species

Species

In biology, a species is one of the basic units of biological classification and a taxonomic rank. A species is often defined as a group of organisms capable of interbreeding and producing fertile offspring. While in many cases this definition is adequate, more precise or differing measures are...

 of sea snail

Snail

Snail is a common name applied to most of the members of the molluscan class Gastropoda that have coiled shells in the adult stage. When the word is used in its most general sense, it includes sea snails, land snails and freshwater snails. The word snail without any qualifier is however more often...

, a marine

Marine (ocean)

Marine is an umbrella term. As an adjective it is usually applicable to things relating to the sea or ocean, such as marine biology, marine ecology and marine geology...

 gastropod mollusc in the family

Family (biology)

In biological classification, family is* a taxonomic rank. Other well-known ranks are life, domain, kingdom, phylum, class, order, genus, and species, with family fitting between order and genus. As for the other well-known ranks, there is the option of an immediately lower rank, indicated by the...

 Naticidae

Naticidae

Naticidae, common name the moon snails, is a family of minute to large-sized predatory sea snails, marine gastropod molluscs in the clade Littorinimorpha.Naticidae is the only family in the superfamily Naticoidea....

, the moon snails.

Distribution

The Common necklace shell is a common sea snail occurring in the sublittoral zone

Neritic zone

The neritic zone, also called coastal waters, the coastal ocean or the sublittoral zone, is the part of the ocean extending from the low tide mark to the edge of the continental shelf, with a relatively shallow depth extending to about 200 meters...

 and deeper waters (exceptionally up to 2,000 m) along sandy coasts of the North Sea

North Sea

In the southwest, beyond the Straits of Dover, the North Sea becomes the English Channel connecting to the Atlantic Ocean. In the east, it connects to the Baltic Sea via the Skagerrak and Kattegat, narrow straits that separate Denmark from Norway and Sweden respectively...

, from France to Norway, and the North East Atlantic (Iceland

Iceland

Iceland , described as the Republic of Iceland, is a Nordic and European island country in the North Atlantic Ocean, on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. Iceland also refers to the main island of the country, which contains almost all the population and almost all the land area. The country has a population...

). It is also common in the Mediterranean Sea

Mediterranean Sea

The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean surrounded by the Mediterranean region and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Anatolia and Europe, on the south by North Africa, and on the east by the Levant...

. It can be frequently found in great numbers washed ashore on beaches. It has been present in the North Sea since the Pliocene

Pliocene

The Pliocene Epoch is the period in the geologic timescale that extends from 5.332 million to 2.588 million years before present. It is the second and youngest epoch of the Neogene Period in the Cenozoic Era. The Pliocene follows the Miocene Epoch and is followed by the Pleistocene Epoch...

.

Description of the shell

The globular shell is rather small with a low spire

Spire (mollusc)

A spire is a descriptive term for part of the coiled shell of mollusks. The word is a convenient aid in describing shells, but it does not refer to a very precise part of shell anatomy: the spire consists of all of the whorls except for the body whorl...

 : max. 16 mm high and 14 mm wide. The shell has a rather pointed apex

Apex (mollusc)

Apex is an anatomical term for the tip of the mollusc shell of a gastropod, scaphopod, or cephalopod mollusc.-Gastropods:The word "apex" is most often used to mean the tip of the spire of the shell of a gastropod...

. There are 5 to 6 gently convex whorls

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...

 with an undeep suture. The body whorl is strongly rounded and covers almost the whole shell. The aperture

Aperture (mollusc)

The aperture is an opening in certain kinds of mollusc shells: it is the main opening of the shell, where part of the body of the animal emerges for locomotion, feeding, etc....

 is rather ovate and has a smooth outer lip. A siphonal canal

Siphonal canal

Some sea marine gastropods have a soft tubular anterior extension of the mantle called a siphon through which water is drawn into the mantle cavity and over the gill and which serves as a chemoreceptor to locate food. In many carnivorous snails, where the siphon is particularly long, the structure...

 is lacking. The umbilicus is partly covered with a callus. The horny operculum

Operculum (gastropod)

The operculum, meaning little lid, is a corneous or calcareous anatomical structure which exists in many groups of sea snails and freshwater snails, and also in a few groups of land snails...

 is composed of corneous material. The surface of the shell is smooth and shiny and lacks sculpture

Sculpture (mollusc)

The sculpture of a mollusc shell is the three-dimensional ornamentation on the outer surface, as distinct from the basic shape of the shell itself or colouration. Sculpture may be concave as well as convex. Sometimes it has microscopic detail. Sculpture refers to the calcareous outer layer, not the...

. Its color is a pale brown-yellow stained with orange to red-brown spots, arranged in four to five spiral lines. The shell of washed up specimens shows often a blue-black discoloration.

Taxonomy

Euspira pulchella was originally described by Risso in 1826 as Natica pulchella. There are many synonyms for this species

• Euspira nitida (Donovan, 1804) (Treated as a synonym of Lunatia pulchella (Risso, 1826) in Poppe & Goto)
• Lunatia alderi (Forbes, 1838)
• Lunatia intermedia (Philippi, 1836)
• Lunatia nitidia auct. non Donovan, 1800
• Lunatia poliana (Della Chiaje, 1826) (Based on genus synonymy)
• Natica alderi Forbes, 1838
• Natica pulchella Risso, 1826 (Original combination for Euspira pulchella)
• Polinices (Euspira) pulchellus (Risso, 1826) (currently placed in genus Euspira)
• Polinices (Lunatia) alderi (Forbes, 1838)
• Polinices (Lunatia) intermedia (Philippi, 1836)
• Polinices (Lunatia) nitida auctt. (non Donovan, 1800) (In Backeljau treated as a synonym of Lunatia alderi (Forbes, 1838))
• Polinices (Lunatia) poliana (Delle Chiaje, 1826)

Further reading

, 1962. British Prosobranch Molluscs. Adlard & Son Ltd, for Ray Society, London, 755 pp., 1981. The prosobranch molluscs of Britain and Denmark, 6. - Cerithiacea, Strombacea, Hipponicacea, Calyptraeacea, Lamellariacea, Cypraeacea, Naticacea, Tonnacea, Heteropoda. Journal of Molluscan Studies, Supplement 9, pp. 285-363.

• Gofas, S.; Le Renard, J.; Bouchet, P. (2001). Mollusca, in: Costello, M.J. et al. (Ed.) (2001). European register of marine species: a check-list of the marine species in Europe and a bibliography of guides to their identification. Collection Patrimoines Naturels, 50: pp. 180-213
• Muller, Y. (2004). Faune et flore du littoral du Nord, du Pas-de-Calais et de la Belgique: inventaire. [Coastal fauna and flora of the Nord, Pas-de-Calais and Belgium: inventory]. Commission Régionale de Biologie Région Nord Pas-de-Calais: France. 307 pp

External links

• http://www.marbef.org/data/aphia.php?p=taxdetails&id=140539