| Speckled Tegula Tegula gallina |
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|---|---|
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Mollusca |
| Class: | Gastropoda |
| (unranked): | clade Vetigastropoda |
| Superfamily: | Trochoidea |
| Family: | Turbinidae |
| Subfamily: | Tegulinae |
| Genus: | Tegula |
| Species: | T. gallina |
| Binomial name | |
| Tegula gallina (Forbes, 1850) |
|
Tegula gallina (or commonly, Speckled Tegula) is a North American species of sea snail, a marine gastropod mollusk in the family Turbinidae, the turban snails.
Contents |
The shell of T. gallina is typically 3⁄4 to 15⁄8 in (1.9 to 4.1 cm) high and wide, though it may be slightly higher than wide.[1] The shell is conical and elevated, with alternating whitish and purplish-grey crowded, slanting axial stripes. Its whorls are convex and rough, and usually indented a short distance below the suture. The base often has an eroded area above a closed umbilicus, the area around which is usually white. The shell aperture is nearly round.[1]
T. gallina lives on intertidal rocks. Its range extends from Santa Barbara County, California to Baja California (Pacific Ocean). Larger specimens of the species live in the southern portion of its range; it is often found alongside the less-common Black Tegula (T. funebralis).[1]