Coriocella Blainville 1824
Creators: name: Fassio, Giulia
name: Stefani, Matteo
name: Russini, Valeria
name: Buge, Barbara
name: Bouchet, Philippe
name: Treneman, Nancy
name: Malaquias, Manuel António E.
name: Schiaparelli, Stefano
name: Modica, Maria Vittoria
name: Oliverio, Marco
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2022
Subjects: Biodiversity
Taxonomy
Animalia
Mollusca
Gastropoda
Littorinimorpha
Velutinidae
Coriocella

description: CORIOCELLA BLAINVILLE, 1824
(FIGS 2, 3, 5D, E, 8B, 9H, 10J, 11J)
Coriocella Blainville, 1824: 259;
type species Coriocella nigra Blainville, 1824 by monotypy.
Chelinotus Swainson, 1840: 355;
type species: Sigaretus tonganus Quoy & Gaimard, 1832 by monotypy.
Chelyonotus Herrmannsen, 1846: 221; unnecessary replacement name for Chelinotus Swainson.
Included species: Coriocella hibyae Wellens, 1991, Coriocella jayi Wellens, 1996, Coriocella nigra Blainville, 1824, Coriocella safagae Wellens, 1999, Coriocella semperi (Bergh, 1875), Coriocella tongana (Quoy & Gaimard, 1832).
Description: Body of small to medium size for the subfamily, 1.5–8.5 cm. Shell thin, strongly to moderately calcified; ear shaped, low spire, with expanded aperture; smooth or weakly sculptured by axial growth lines; completely enclosed by the mantle. Periostracum thin.
Protoconch of 1.0–1.3 whorls; protoconch I 0.46–1.10 whorls, nucleus diameter 122–150 μm, smooth, with subsutural axial folds; protoconch II with or without axial growth lines; protoconch–teleoconch boundary not always distinct.
Mantle dome shaped, outline rounded; thick, with two to six warts on the dorsum; with anterior siphon folds; smooth, wrinkled, often velvet-like in texture; colour highly variable, beige, yellow, red, violet, blue, dark green, brown, black, often patterned with irregular colour patches or spots.
Penis to the right of the right cephalic tentacle; with tip of the seminal duct protruded from the penis tip. Vas deferens without a free loop in haemocoel.
Radula reduced taenioglossate, with formula 0:1:1:1:0; rachidian tooth base bifurcated; rachidian cusp with several external small denticles; lateral teeth elongated, with one external triangular pointed and bold cusp with small denticles on the external side, plus one truncated projection with small denticles on the distal side.
Jaws elongated.
Distribution: Indo-West Pacific (Madagascar, Reunion, Mauritius, Red Sea, Maldives, Philippines, northern Australia, New Caledonia, French Polynesia, Tonga); 0–18 m deep.
Remarks: Coriocella is probably the lamellarine genus that can be recognized best from the external morphology only, thanks to the presence of a variable, species-specific number of warts, well evident on the dorsum of living animals (e.g. three for Coriocella nigra; five for Coriocella safage Wellens, 1999, Coriocella hibyae, Coriocella semperi and Coriocella tongana (Quoy & Gaimard, 1832); and six for Coriocella jayi), and the typical light brown or dark velvet-like coloration. However, the warts can become barely visible and the colour often vanishes once the specimen is preserved in alcohol. The shell shape is hardly distinguishable from the other low-spired lamellariine genera (Lamellaria, Marsenia and Djiboutia). However, most adult specimens of Coriocella show a higher level of shell calcification compared with the rest of the subfamily.
description: Published as part of Fassio, Giulia, Stefani, Matteo, Russini, Valeria, Buge, Barbara, Bouchet, Philippe, Treneman, Nancy, Malaquias, Manuel António E., Schiaparelli, Stefano, Modica, Maria Vittoria & Oliverio, Marco, 2023, Neither slugs nor snails: a molecular reappraisal of the gastropod family Velutinidae, pp. 924-964 in Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society 197 (4) on page 955, DOI: 10.1093/zoolinnean/zlac091, http://zenodo.org/record/7814306