Smaragdinella sieboldi A. Adams, 1864

Description

A small, fragile, glaucous-greenish smaragdinellid with an ovate-oblong shell that is barely involute and openly flared. The shell is thin and translucent, with the dorsum sculpted by longitudinal striations. The columellar lip carries only a slightly dilated spiral lamella, a distinctive character that immediately separates this species from Smaragdinella viridis, Smaragdinella glauca and Smaragdinella minor, in which the lamella is so broad that it forms a cup-shaped appendage; in S. sieboldi only a narrow spiral ridge is visible.

Distribution

Type locality: Takano-Sima (Takano Island), between tide-marks, Japan. Recorded from the western Pacific.

Etymology

The specific epithet sieboldi honours Philipp Franz von Siebold (1796-1866), the German naturalist whose work in Japan during the 1820s-1830s documented and collected much of the Japanese marine fauna for European museums. Adams credits Siebold's collection in his original description.

Remarks

The Japanese vernacular "タテジワミドリガイ" refers to the longitudinal striations on the dorsum of the shell.

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References

• Smaragdinella Sieboldi, Adams A. (1864). On some new genera and species of Mollusca from the seas of China and Japan. Annals and Magazine of Natural History, series 3, 13: 307-310.
• Oskars T.R., Too C.C., Rees D., Mikkelsen P.M., Willassen E. & Malaquias M.A.E. (2019). A molecular phylogeny of the gastropod family Haminoeidae sensu lato (Heterobranchia: Cephalaspidea): a generic revision. Invertebrate Systematics 33(3): 426-472.
• タテジワミドリガイ, 小野篤司 & 加藤昌一. (2020). 新版 ウミウシ. 誠文堂新光社.