15 — Deep-sea nutmeg shell, Tritia ephamilia

Tritia ephamilia, Chatham Rise, 2004
~20mm.

Tritia ephamilia (Watson, 1882) is deep-water shell, which belongs in the family Nassariidae. It lives in quite deep-water down to at least 2500m and is endemic to New Zealand. While not all that much is known about this particular species, nassariids are known to be active scavengers, so it seems likely that this is also the case with this species.

Tritia ephamilia, Chatham Rise, 2004
~20mm.

There is a school of thought that suggests that small scavenging creatures like T. enphamilia may be one of the few species to benefit from activities of deep-sea commercial trawling (assuming they don’t get crushed by the trawls themselves). The reasoning being that being small, they have the opportunity to survive trawling activity and by being scavengers they get to take advantage of any animals killed or damaged by the trawls.

This particular shell is one from my PhD research. It was taken from the stomach of a blob fish (Psychrolutes microporos Nelson, 1995). The blob fish was taken in a research trawl for orange roughy (Hoplostethus atlanticus Collett, 1889). The trawl occurred in 1117m of water near the Andes complex of seamounts, north-eastern Chatham Rise, in July, 2004.