Common whelk
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Buccinum undatum Temporal range: 28.5Mya – present |
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| A live individual of Buccinum undatum being held up above the substrate | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Mollusca |
| Class: | Gastropoda |
| (unranked): |
clade Caenogastropoda clade Hypsogastropoda |
| Superfamily: | Buccinoidea |
| Family: | Buccinidae |
| Subfamily: | Buccininae |
| Tribe: | Buccinini |
| Genus: | Buccinum |
| Species: | B. undatum |
| Binomial name | |
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Buccinum undatum (Linnaeus, 1758) |
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| Synonyms | |
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clade Hypsogastropoda
clade Neogastropoda
Buccinum undatum, the common whelk or the waved buccinum, is a large, edible marine gastropod in the family Buccinidae, the "true whelks".
This species is a familiar part of the marine fauna of the Northern Atlantic and is found on the shores of the United Kingdom, France, Norway, Iceland, various other northwest European countries, some Arctic islands, and North America as far south as New Jersey. They prefer colder temperatures, and cannot survive at temperatures above 29°C.
This species is mainly found on soft bottoms in the sublittoral zone, and occasionally on the littoral fringe, where it is sometimes found alive at low tide. It does not adapt well to life in the intertidal zone, due to its intolerance for low salinities. If exposed to air, it may crawl from its shell, risking desiccation.
This species' solid, ovate-conical, ventricose shell is very pale, white, yellowish or reddish. In life, the shell is covered in a bright, yellowish-brown periostracum. The spire contains seven or eight whorls. These are convex and crossed by oblique folds, thick and waved The shell surface has a sculpture of vertical, wavy folds (hence the name undatum, which means wavy). The wavy folds are crossed by numerous incised, very prominent spiral lines, some of which are paired. The white and very large aperture of the shell is broadly oval and tapers to a deeply-notched siphonal canal. The outer lip is arched.
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Wikipedia