Selenizone

A selenizone (from the Greek "selene" meaning "moon", and "zone" meaning "girdle") is an anatomical structure that exists in the shells of some families of living sea snails: the slit shells, the little slit shells and the abalones, which are marine gastropod mollusks from ancient lineages.

It is a spiral band of crescentric growth lines or threads (lunulae) on the shell surface due to the semicircular end of a notch or slit on the outer lip.

A structure of the same type exists in several fossil groups of mollusks, including all the fossil families of slit shells, as well as three superfamilies of what may have been gastropods, but may possibly have been monoplacophorans or paragastropods instead.

The function of the holes and slits in living sea snails is to allow for exhalant water circulation, which is important for respiration and other functions. It has also been suggested that the selenizone may serve to reinforce the shell against catastrophic breakage during predation attempts.[1]

A new shell-morphological term 'sutsel' has been introduced by Dr. Geiger for the area between the SUTure and the SELenizone.

In the Pleurotomariidae (the slit shells), and the Scissurellidae (the little slit shells), the selenizone is a groove on the periphery of the shell which forms as the shell grows by the gradual sealing up of a slit that extends back from the edge of the aperture of the shell.

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