Falsilunatia subperforata Dell 1956

“Falsilunatia subperforata n.sp. Figs. 83, 87.

Shell small, elongate, ovate, white, solid. Spire raised, approximately one-third the height of the aperture. Shell surface polished with well-marked irregular, wavy incised spirals. Growth lines well marked. Sutures abutting. Aperture semi-lunar. Outer lip thickened, inclined about 20 degrees to the vertical. Inner lip with heavy callus, the callus curving upwards below the parietal region and almost blocking the umbilicus. Inner lip indented below the umbilicus. In young shells the callus does not fill the umbilicus, but the strong indentations are well marked. Lower margin of the inner lip thickened. Colour white, with a light brown epidermis in life. Operculum horny.

Height, 10.7 mm.; diameter, 8.5 mm.

Holotype (M. 9771) and paratypes in Dominion Museum, paratypes in Can­terbury Museum.

Localities: C.I.E. Station 4, Chatham Rise, in 200 fathoms; C.I.E. Station 41, south-east of Pitt Island, Chatham Island, in 330 fathoms (type); Portobello Alert Station 54-17, off east Otago coast, in 260 to 350 fathoms; B.S. 190, off east Otago coast, in 300 fathoms.

Shell rather similar to a small F. powelli, but differing in being more elongate, and having the suture more tangential than abutting, and in having strong spirals and a different arrangement of callus around the umbilicus.

This is almost certainly the form recorded from Challenger Station 169, in 700 fathoms, by Watson (1886, p. 455) as possibly the same as Natica (Amauropsis) apora Watson described from 800 fathoms off the "Arrou Islands." The single specimen obtained by the Challenger in New Zealand waters was "in too bad a condition for identification," but apora has always been included in New Zealand faunal lists. From apora the new species differs in having the spiral sculpture much more obvious, and in having sutures that are not channelled. Is is also much smaller. Comparison of specimens would undoubtedly show other differences.”

(Dell, 1956: 75-76)

Amauropsis subperforata is a deepwater species of sea snail, a marine gastropod mollusc in the family Naticidae.

Falsilunatia subperforata es una especie de molusco gasterópodo de la familia Naticidae.