Novas espécies e novas ocorrências de gastrópodos marinhos na costa brasileira (Prosobranchia, Neogastropoda) – Protologue of Babelomurex basilium (Archival Copy)

Description

Technical info (English)

• Holotype:
  • MZUSP 18844, collected by N/O Prof. W. Besnard, station 443, 31°06′S, 49°30′W, off Solidão, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil; 208 m depth; 6 December 1968. Shell length 29 mm; width (including spines) 31 mm.

• Paratypes:
  
  • MZUSP 18996: 1 shell, same locality as holotype.
  • MZUSP 18846: collected by N/O Prof. W. Besnard, station 731, 25°46′S, 46°03′W, off Paranaguá, Paraná; 124–133 m depth; 10 October 1969.

• Shell description:
  • White, with ~9 whorls, elevated spire, and a shoulder marked by recurved spines arranged spirally. Aperture oval-elongate, glossy white interior; columella smooth, slightly sigmoid, with thin white callus. Wide, funnellike umbilicus. Protoconch with ~2 whorls, nearly smooth, bearing a keel below midline. Later whorls with strong longitudinal ribs joined by spiral cords; upper cords developing into triangular spines (~9 per whorl).

• Operculum:
  • Corneous, multispiral, sublateral nucleus, with continuous peripheral scar and transverse ridges.

• Soft anatomy (preserved specimen):
  • Body depigmented except for black eyes, purple hypobranchial gland, and a purple transverse band inside the mantle. Long tentacles, left longer than right; penis claviform with apical stylet, internally traversed by closed seminal canal. Long siphon, lobed mantle margin, partially bipectinate osphradium.

• Remarks:
  • Morphologically close to Coralliophila dalli (Emerson & D’Attilio), differing in embryonic whorl keel, aperture form, absence of columellar indentation, parietal callus, siphonal canal inclination, and operculum structure.