Biogeographical Distribution
Members of the family Turbinidae occur throughout all oceans worldwide, across all latitudes, and inhabit all regions from the deep sea to the high, intertidal zones close to shore (Williams and Ozawa 2006). Existing within this family is the subfamily Turbininae. While again distributed across oceans throughout the world, this highest species diversity of this subfamily exists in the Indo-West Pacific (IWP) region (Williams 2007).
Figure 1. Map of the world, indicating the Indo-West Pacific region (IWP).
The scaley turban (
Turbo perspeciosus) falls within Marmarostoma, a subgenus that today is restricted in distribution to the IWP. However several, well-preserved Marmarostoma fossil specimens have been located and collected from well outside the IWP range, in south-western France. Through the process of dating these fossils, it has been established that prior to the closure of the Tethys, many species from this subgenus were in fact living in the Mediterranean and East Atlantic oceans (Williams 2007).
Studies of a closely related species, Turbo intercostalis, have suggested that the global distribution of the species is restricted by reproductive difficulties, which limit the ability of the species to disperse south into the cooler ocean waters (Joll 1980). Similar difficulties may be a factor contributing to the restriction of the scaley turban to the IWP.