Cerithium echinatum is a species

Species

In biology, a species is one of the basic units of biological classification and a taxonomic rank. A species is often defined as a group of organisms capable of interbreeding and producing fertile offspring. While in many cases this definition is adequate, more precise or differing measures are...

 of small sea snail

Snail

Snail is a common name applied to most of the members of the molluscan class Gastropoda that have coiled shells in the adult stage. When the word is used in its most general sense, it includes sea snails, land snails and freshwater snails. The word snail without any qualifier is however more often...

, a marine

Marine (ocean)

Marine is an umbrella term. As an adjective it is usually applicable to things relating to the sea or ocean, such as marine biology, marine ecology and marine geology...

 gastropod mollusk in the family

Family (biology)

In biological classification, family is* a taxonomic rank. Other well-known ranks are life, domain, kingdom, phylum, class, order, genus, and species, with family fitting between order and genus. As for the other well-known ranks, there is the option of an immediately lower rank, indicated by the...

 Cerithiidae

Cerithiidae

Cerithiidae, common name the cerithiids or ceriths, is a large family of medium-sized marine gastropods in the clade Sorbeoconcha.- Distribution :...

.

Description

This snail's shell has a short siphonal canal. The shell has spiral rows of bumps as well as reddish-brown dashes. It has been found at 53mm in size.

Distribution

The distribution of Cerithium echinatum includes the Indo-Pacific.
It is found off the southern African coast at northern KwaZulu-Natal and Mozambique in 15-30m of water.

External links

• Image from Natural History Museum Rotterdam: http://www.nmr-pics.nl/Cerithiidae/album/index.html