Turris Batsch, 1789

Kilburn, Richard N., Fedosov, Alexander E. & Olivera, Baldomero M., 2012, Revision of the genus Turris Batsch, 1789 (Gastropoda: Conoidea: Turridae) with the description of six new species, Zootaxa 3244 (1), pp. 1-58 : 3

Turris Batsch, 1789

Type species (s.d. Dubois & Bour 2010): Murex babylonius, 1758 .

Synonym: Annulaturris Powell, 1966 . Type species (o.d.): Pleurotoma amicta E. A. Smith, 1877 .

DESCRIPTION: Shell medium to large (adult length 40–185 mm), fusiform with high spire and long, unnotched siphonal canal; anal sinus a deep slot situated on a ridge immediately above the peripheral keel; sculpture of spiral cords or ridges, sinus cord often crenulated. Usually with brown spots or stripes. Protoconch usually minute and papilliform, of 2–5 whorls, smooth, later whorls usually axially ribbed; in some species large and bulbous, of 1.5–2.0 smooth whorls. Operculum ungulate, typical of Turrinae .

Radula of duplex marginal teeth, varying considerably in shape, sometimes with a quadrate central tooth bearing a small to large median cusp.

Turris is a tropical Indo-West Pacific group with only one temperate water species (the South African Turris faleiroi Kilburn, 1998 ). No species of Turris occur in the Atlantic Ocean or Mediterranean Sea.

The genus Turris was distinguished by Powell (1964, 1966) from the very similar genus Lophiotoma Casey, 1904 , on the basis of the anal sinus being situated on a ”special” spiral cord, not on the peripheral cord as in the latter. This convention is followed here, although this difference hinges solely on the relative strength of the two cords, a character not always clearly defined. We follow Li & Li (2007) in leaving the status of Annulaturris in abeyance, pending more extensive radula studies.