Calliostoma

Calliostoma is a genus of small to medium-sized sea snails with gills and an operculum, marine gastropod molluscs within the family Calliostomatidae, the calliostoma top snails (according to the taxonomy of taxonomy of Gastropoda by Bouchet & Rocroi (2005)). Previously this genus was placed within the family Trochidae. Calliostoma is the type genus of the family Calliostomatidae.

The name of this genus is derived from the Greek words kallos (beautiful) and stoma (mouth), referring to the pearly aperture of the shell. The genus Calliostoma is known in fossil records from the Upper Cretaceous onwards.^[3]

The distribution of this genus is distributed worldwide, found mainly on hard substrata, although Japanese species have been found on sandy bottoms. These snails occur from shallow waters to bathyal depths.

The species in this genus are mainly herbivorous or feed on detritus,^[4] although a few have been observed to be omnivorous (Keen, 1975) or even carnivorous, feeding on a wide range of algae and on animals belonging to various other invertebrate phyla.^[5] The North Atlantic topshell Calliostoma occidentale has been reported to feed on coelenterates.^[6]

Contrary to what is the case in most other top shells, Calliostoma deposits its eggs in gelatinous ribbons that are only fertilized after being deposited. The young emerge as small snails (Lebour, 1936) without passing through a free-living planktonic stage as a veliger larva.

Species

Species within the genus Calliostoma include: ^[2]

References

Further reading

• Marshall, B.A. (1995). "A revision of the recent Calliostoma species of New Zealand". The Nautilus 108: 83–127. 
• Quinn, J.F. Jr. (1992). "New species of Calliostoma and notes on some poorly known species from the Western Atlantic". The Nautilus 106: 77–114. 
• Rosenberg G. (2005). "Malacolog 4.1.0: : A database of Western Atlantic Marine Mollusca". http://www.malacolog.org/. Retrieved 2009-03-18. 
• Williams, S.T.; K.M. Donald, H.G. Spencer and T. Nakano (March 2010). "Molecular systematics of the marine gastropod families Trochidae and Calliostomatidae (Mollusca: Superfamily Trochoidea)". Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution. 3 54 (3): 783–809. doi:10.1016/j.ympev.2009.11.008. PMID 19919851. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6WNH-4XPG1RM-3&_user=10&_coverDate=03%2F31%2F2010&_rdoc=1&_fmt=high&_orig=search&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_searchStrId=1342737302&_rerunOrigin=scholar.google&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=1ee7d99990b87ace473557069fdc9d86. Retrieved 2010-05-20. 
• Vilvens C. (2009). New species and new records of Calliostomatidae (Gastropoda: Trochoidea) from New Caledonia and Solomon Islands. Novapex 10(4): 125-163