Lightning whelk
| Lightning whelk | |
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| Three views of one shell of Busycon perversum with operculum | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Mollusca |
| Class: | Gastropoda |
| (unranked): | clade Caenogastropoda clade Hypsogastropoda clade Neogastropoda |
| Superfamily: | Buccinoidea |
| Family: | Buccinidae |
| Subfamily: | Busyconinae |
| Tribe: | Busyconini |
| Genus: | Busycon |
| Species: | B. contrarium |
| Binomial name | |
| Busycon contrarium (Linnaeus, 1758.) |
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| Synonyms | |
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Busycon sinistrum |
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The lightning whelk, scientific name Busycon contrarium, is an edible species of very large predatory sea snail or whelk, a marine gastropod mollusk in the family Buccinidae, the busycon whelks. This species has a left-handed or sinistral shell. It eats mostly bivalves, sucking their mass up with its proboscis.
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[edit] Distribution
This species is native to southeastern North America,south to Florida and the Gulf states.
[edit] Habitat
Lightning whelks can be found in the sandy or muddy substrate of shallow embayments.
[edit] Life habits
These whelks feed primarily on marine bivalves.
[edit] Busycon contrarium and B. carica
This species shares many characteristics with its sister species, the knobbed whelk Busycon carica, but there are some important differences:
- Lightning whelks are sinistral in coiling while knobbed whelks are dextral
- Lightning whelks have a lower spire than the knobbed whelk
- The knobs of the lightning whelk are usually less well-developed than those of the knobbed whelk
- Lightning whelks are diurnal while knobbed whelks are active both day and night
- Lightning whelks prefer to stay in deeper waters than the knobbed whelks when feeding on mud flats
[edit] Human use
For thousands of years Native Americans used these animals as food, and used their shells for tools, ornaments, containers and shell gorgets.[1] They may have believed the sinistral nature of the lightning whelk shell made it a sacred object.
The lightning whelk is the State Shell of Texas.
[edit] References
- ^ Starr F. 1897. A Shell Gorget from Mexico. Proceeding Davenport Academy of Natural Sciences, volume VI. 173-178.
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This article includes a list of references, but its sources remain unclear because it has insufficient inline citations. Please help to improve this article by introducing more precise citations. (July 2009) |
- Marquardt, W.M. 1992 Shell Artifacts from the Caloosahatchee Area. In Culture and Environment in the Domain of the Calusa, edited by W. H. Marquardt, pp. 191-228. Institute of Archaeology and Paleoenvironmental Studies, Monograph 1. University of Florida, Gainesville.
- Paine, Robert T. 1962 Ecological Diversification in Sympatric Gastropods of the Genus Busycon. Evolution 16(4):515-523.
- Pulley, T.E. 1959 Busycon perversum (Linné) and some related species. Rice Institute Pamphlet, 46:70-89.
- Wise, J.B., G. Harasewych, & R. Dillon. 2004. Population divergence in the sinistral Busycon whelks of North America, with special reference to the east Florida ecotone. Marine Biology, 145:1163-1179; SMSFP Contrib.538.
[edit] External links
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Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Busycon contrarium |
- Georgia Department of Natural Resources, Snails of the Sea
- Texas Parks and Wildlife, lightning whelks
