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Type Description

Shell. — Very small, high and conical, pointed, pale sandy-coloured, reticulated, bicarinated, with a small rounded tip, short convex whorls, an impressed suture, a small short flatly conical base, and a small round mouth. Sculpture : Longitudinals — there are from 10 to 15 small narrow slightly arched riblets, which above at the suture and on the base are barely visible, but rise into little sharpish tubercles on crossing the spiral threads ; they are distinctly to be seen on the first regular whorl, and are more numerous there than toward the last whorl ; in the full-grown shell one or two of these riblets swell into varices, which appear on the base. Spirals — there are on each whorl two fine rounded threadlets, dotted with fine rounded but sharpish tubercles, where the longitudinal riblets intersect ; they are parted by a shallow flat interval of nearly double their width ; above these the conical sloping shoulder of each whorl has only the feeblest trace of one or two spirals, of which one may be seen just below the suture ; below the periphery are two rather sharper but untubercled spirals, of which the upper lies at the insertion of the outer lip, and can be seen in the suture all up the spire ; these two basal spirals are parted by a small shallow square-cut furrow ; within these spirals the base is flatly conical, slightly marked with radiating lines of growth, and occasionally with two very faint spiral threads close in to the pillar. Colour white, or sandy, with a tinge of chestnut toward the tip. Spire high and narrow, with conical barely convex profile lines. Apex consists of 2^ whorls, which are subdiscoidal to dome-shaped as the first whorl and a half are flat and the extreme tip is not raised. Whorls 9 in all, short and small, convex, keeled by the upper spiral, and slightly so by the lower one also ; they have a long drooping shoulder, narrow slightly from the first to the second spiral, and are contracted to the suture below ; the last is small ; the rise of these short regularly but very slowly increasing whorls, with the long drooping shoulder and the squareness between the two keels, gives a pagoda-like aspect to the shell. Suture scarcely oblique, constricted. Mouth very small, gibbously round, bluntly pointed above, and in front of the pillar, where there is an angulation which represents the canal. Outer lip thin; from its insertion it runs straight outwards and downwards, then curves round the corner of the base, where it is flat and patulous. Inner lip concave throughout ; it is very thin on the body, and has a thin patulous twisted edge on the short pillar.  

Habitat

"Ceriths are found worldwide on sandy bottoms, reef flats or coral reef rock covered with sand and algae in the sublittoral zone of warm or temperate waters. Most are found in tropical areas. çevir

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Reproductive Information

Lifecycle

Nutrition Information

Ceriths are herbivores and detritivores that graze the sea bed.

General Impact Information

General Management Information

General Pathway Information

Suez Canal

Notes

References