Pontiothauma Explained

Pontiothauma is a genus of sea snails, marine gastropod mollusks in the family Raphitomidae.

Description

The fusiform shell is not umbilicate, anteriorly rostrate and obliquely folded. The shell is spirally furrowed by lirae. The aperture ends in a short siphonal canal. The simple columella is not folded. The outer lip is thin, posteriorly wide but not deeply sinuate. The shell lacks an operculum.

The enormously expanded rostrum, and the absence of eyes, radula, and operculum, at once separate this genus from any which it approaches in shell-character.^[1]

Species

Species within the genus Pontiothauma include:

• Pontiothauma abyssicola Smith E. A., 1895
• Pontiothauma minus Smith E. A., 1906
• Pontiothauma mirabile Smith E. A., 1895
• Pontiothauma pacei Smith E. A., 1906

Species brought into synonymy:

• Pontiothauma ergata Hedley, 1916: synonym of Belaturricula ergata (Hedley, 1916)
• Pontiothauma fusiforme Habe, 1962: synonym of Spergo fusiformis (Habe, 1962) (original combination)
• Pontiothauma hedleyi Dell, 1990: synonym of Aforia hedleyi (Dell, 1990)
• Pontiothauma viridis (Okutani, 1966): synonym of Belomitra viridis (Okutani, 1966)

References

• Pace, S. "On the Anatomy of the Prosobranch Genus Pontiothauma, EA Smith." Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society 28.186 (1903): 455-462.
• Smith, Edgar A. "I.—Natural history notes from HM Indian marine survey steamer ‘Investigator,’commander CF Oldham, RN—Series II., No. 19. Report upon the Mollusca dredged in the bay of Bengal and the Arabian sea during the season 1893–94." Journal of Natural History 16.91 (1895): 1-19.
• Smith, Edgar A. "XXV.—Natural history notes form RIMS ‘Investigator.’—Series III., No. 10. On Mollusca from the Bay of Bengal and the Arabian Sea." Journal of Natural History 18.105 (1906): 157-175.
• Powell, A. W. B. "Mollusca of Antarctic and Subantarctic seas." Biogeography and ecology in Antarctica. Springer, Dordrecht, 1965. 333-380.

External links

• Tucker . J.K. . 2004 . Catalog of recent and fossil turrids (Mollusca: Gastropoda) . Zootaxa . 682 . 1–1295 . 10.11646/zootaxa.682.1.1 .
• Worldwide Mollusc Species Data Base: Raphitomidae
• Bouchet, P.; Kantor, Y. I.; Sysoev, A.; Puillandre, N. (2011). A new operational classification of the Conoidea (Gastropoda). Journal of Molluscan Studies. 77(3): 273-308.
• Kantor, Yuri I., and John D. Taylor. "Foregut anatomy and relationships of raphitomine gastropods (Gastropoda: Conoidea: Raphitominae)." Bollettino Malacologico 38 (2003): 83-110.

Notes and References

1. https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/25122504#page/523/mode/1up E.A. Smith (1895) I.—Natural history notes from H.M. Indian marine survey steamer ‘Investigator,’ commander C. F. Oldham, R.N.—Series II., No. 19. Report upon the Mollusca dredged in the bay of Bengal and the Arabian sea during the season 1893–94; The Annals and magazine of natural history; zoology, botany, and geology Volume: 16 (6)