Vaceuchelus ampullus (Tate 1893)

Vaceuchelus ampullus is a species of sea snail, a marine gastropod mollusk in the family Chilodontidae.^[1][2]

Description

(Original description)The shell is globose-conic, imperforate in the young, narrowly umbilicated or reduced to a fissure in the adult. It is whitish, spotted with red on the revolving ribs. The whorls of the spire are quadrate, separated by a linear suture. The body whorl is convex, except a little flattening at the suture.

The sculpture of the penultimate whorl consists of three equally thick, obtuse, and plain cinguli (= colored bands or spiral ornamentation), separated from one another and from the sutures by nearly equal interspaces, with or without a small riblet in each interval. All over regularly clathrate, the interstitial pits are narrowly oblong. The body whorl contains about eight cinguli, clathrate in the intervals: the supra-peripheral intervals show a riblet. The four basal cinguli are granulose.

The aperture is roundly oval. The outer and basal margins are smooth within. The columella is arcuate, slightly explanulate concave and edentulous. ^[3]

Distribution

This marine species is endemic to Australia (New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia, Tasmania, Victoria, Western Australia).

References

• Shirley, J. 1913. Additions to the Marine Mollusca of Queensland. Proceedings of the Royal Society of Queensland 24: 55-56
• Hedley, C. 1915. Studies on Australian Mollusca. Part XII. Proceedings of the Linnean Society of New South Wales 39: 695–755, pls 77–85
• Hedley, C. 1918. A checklist of the marine fauna of New South Wales. Part 1. Journal and Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales 51: M1–M120
• Cotton, B.C. 1945. Southern Australian Gastropoda. Part 1. Streptoneura. Transactions of the Royal Society of South Australia 69(1): 150-171
• Thornley, G. 1951. Marine shell collecting on the north coast of New South Wales. Proceedings of the Royal Zoological Society of New South Wales 1949-1950: 44-52
• Cotton, B. C. (1959). South Australian Mollusca. Archaeogastropoda. Handbook of the Flora and Fauna of South Australia Series. South Australian Branch of British Science Guild. W. L. Hawes, Government Printer, Adelaide. p. 1-448.
• Poppe G.T., Tagaro S.P. & Dekker H. (2006) The Seguenziidae, Chilodontidae, Trochidae, Calliostomatidae and Solariellidae of the Philippine Islands. Visaya Supplement 2: 1-228.