 |
| Alcithoe jaculoides (johnstoni form). |
 |
| Alcithoe jaculoides (johnstoni form). |
Alcithoe jaculoides, Powell 1924 is another one of those little-known New Zealand sea shells. It's a large shell (~180m) with a distribution limited to the north of North Island, on the continental shelf down to at least
450m. However, recent work has inferred that a closely related southern species (
Alcithoe calva, Powell, 1928), is actually a smooth form of
A.
jaculoides. Just to complicate matters the specimen shown here is the '
johnstoni' form, which has a large flared aperture and shorter spire than typical
jaculoides.
Closely related shallow water species are known to feed on bivalves, so it is likely that
A.
jaculoides does also. I was given this shell as part of a collection when I was about 16. The collection had been accumulated by a fisherman in the 1960's and that's all I can remember. Sadly, I have no locality data for this shell. However, chances are this came from the Bay of Plenty.
No comments:
Post a Comment