Bellaspira stahlschmidti Fallon, 2016, new species
Creators: name: Fallon, Phillip J.
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2016
Subjects: Biodiversity
Taxonomy
Animalia
Mollusca
Gastropoda
Neogastropoda
Drilliidae
Bellaspira
Bellaspira stahlschmidti

description: Bellaspira stahlschmidti, new species
(Plate 14)
Type material. Holotype 10.3 x 4.3 mm (MZSP 122054), ex P. Stahlschmidt coll. Type locality. Off Guarapari, Espirito Santo State, south central Brazil, in 35– 50 m. Range and habitat. Known only from the holotype.
Description. Shell small (10.3 mm in length), stoutly fusiform, solid, truncated anteriorly, glossy, with about 7½ slightly convex whorls with impressed sutures and low ribs. Aperture a wide oval with a short anterior canal. Protoconch of 1½ smooth round whorls, glossy but not translucent, regularly expanding, the first whorl not immersed in the second. Axial sculpture of broad ribs, low, almost obsolete, running from suture-to-suture, narrower than their interspaces. Ribs channeled at the margin of the sulcus then terminating lower at the suture, forming a knob mid-sulcus. Ribs highest, almost knob-like at about mid-whorl, then evanescent below whorl periphery; 9 ribs on penultimate, 6 on last whorl to varix. Varix is broad, low, hump-like, about ⅓-turn from edge of outer lip. Spiral sculpture of fine incised lines over the shell’s entire surface, fairly evenly spaced; ridge-like on the anterior fasciole. Growth striae strong, obscuring spiral lines in places. Sulcus demarcated by a depression of the axial ribs at about ⅓-height of spire whorl; ribs in sulcus raised, node like. Outer lip solid, like rest of shell, with no axial folds. Stromboid notch very shallow; wide. Edge of lip traces a continuous low arc from suture to end of anterior canal. Anal sinus is a wide but shallow indentation of the outer lip beginning at the suture, (when shell viewed laterally), and shaped like an inverted “V”, with inner callus on both parietal wall and outer lip of mature specimens (when shell viewed ventrally). Inner lip moderately wide, recumbent, margined, with a callus where the inner lip joins the outer. Anterior canal short, open, notched at its end. Color white.
Remarks. Taxonomy. Bellaspira stahlschmidti has all the key characteristics of the genus: axial ribs that extend from suture-to-suture, (but sharply diminished in the sulcus—a trait not present in all members of the genus); and anal sinus a wide but shallow indentation of the outer lip beginning at the suture (shell viewed laterally), and surface microsculpture of incised lines over most of the teleoconch. Identification. Bellaspira stahlschmidti differs from its known congeners in possessing a broadly oval aperture and sweeping outer lip that extends anteriorly slightly beyond the siphonal canal in the fashion of some Fenimorea. It can be distinguished from Fenimorea nivalis, new species, which is also small, white and stout, by its fewer ribs and absence of a Ushaped anal sinus. The knob-like axials are also reminiscent of some Splendrillia, but members of that genus have a notched anal sinus quite different from that of Bellaspira.
This specimen is very different from its congeners (see Plate 16). It stands apart from the only two other Bellaspira that have distinct anal fascioles (B. hannyae, and B. rosea) and as such merits description as a new species. It is only the second species of Bellaspira described from southern Brazil, the other being B. rosea.
Etymology. Stahlschmidt’s Bellaspira: named after Dr. Peter Stahlschmidt for having provided the specimen for this description, and for his dedication to molluscan taxonomy.
description: Published as part of Fallon, Phillip J., 2016, Taxonomic review of tropical western Atlantic shallow water Drilliidae (Mollusca: Gastropoda: Conoidea) including descriptions of 100 new species, pp. 1-363 in Zootaxa 4090 (1) on pages 43-44, DOI: 10.11646/zootaxa.4090.1.1, http://zenodo.org/record/263299