Features

Description

Architecture

·   Conic-ovate

·   Solid and thick

·   Wide

·   Moderately elongated

Colour

·   White background

·   Usually of an overall brown-black aspect due to many spiral dark brown to black blotches

Whorls

·   Sculptured with incised spiral lines and grooves

Body Whorl

·   Very large and wide

Aperture

·   Ovate in shape

·   A little less than one-half the shell length

Outer Lip

·   Rounded

·   Smooth, slightly scalloped and denticulate within

Inner Lip

·   Sculptured with deep grooves paralleling outer spiral grooves

·   Purple in colour

Columella

·   Concave with slight callus and prominent parietal tooth at edge of posterior anal canal

·   White in colour

Posterior Canal

·   Moderately constricted, short and wide

Suture

·   Deeply incised

Periostracum

·   Organic coating on the outer most layer of shell

·   Thin, brown in colour

Operculum

·   Large, lenticular (lens- shape), paucispiral (few spiral/whorls) with subterminal nucleus