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Schooner Specimen Shells
by Ross Mayhew creator of The Mollusc of the Moment Articles |
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Tudicula zanzibarica (Abbott, 1958 ) |
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Species: Tudicula zanzibarica Abbott, 1958 English Name: None - Very rare species Image: done on a UMAX 1200S scanner. |
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The Turbinella family is most famous for a) the Genus Vasum
(it used to be called
Vasidae - the Vase shells, named for their vase-like shape), and for the
"sacred chank" shell: left-handed specimens of the Indian Chank - Turbinella
pyrum (Linne, 1758) , which is revered by Hindus (for more info
on this, see the Man and Mollusc article (link)).
The Turbinellids are a small crowd - less than 50 species known worldwide,
although they are more popular in the fossil record. They are carnivorous,
feeding on worms and clams in tropical waters, mostly shallow. Many of
them are quite large (T. pyrum, for example, reaches nearly 300mm,
while the largest one gets up to nearly half a meter!), and there
are no known micro-species in the family.
The featured species, Tudicula zanzibarica Abbott, 1958, occurs in slightly deeper water than most family members, and is by far the rarest, being known from only a few dozen specimens from Zanzibar. The fully adult specimen in the scanned image, is 63mm, if I remember correctly, and is most likely the world size record. |