A new Australian Volute
Abstract
Voluta perplicata, sp. nov. Shell broadly fusiform, concave beneath the suture, angled at the shoulder, tapering to the base, solid, glossy. Colour. On a white ground are disposed numerous distant waved narrow longitudinal orange lines; beneath the shoulder and periphery are faint broad suffused spiral bands of the same colour. Sculpture. About nine longitudinal ribs gradually arise in the centre of the whorl, enlarge rapidly, and terminate suddenly in blunt tubercles on the shoulder. These tubercles are continued on the upper whorls, and, becoming finer and closer, pass into the ribbing of the apex. Basal funicle distinct, distorting the colour pattern and entering the aperture between the third and fourth fold. Whorls six, of which three are apical, the latter oblique to the axis of the remainder and causing the first adult whorl to be more immersed at one side. Aperture narrow, columella with six plications, the topmost doubled in one example, becoming smaller and more transverse as they ascend. Length, 75 mm.; breadth, 32 mm. I purchased three specimens from a beche-de-mer fisherman in Cairns, Queensland, in August, 1901. The seller had forgotten the exact locality, but said he had taken them either on the neighbouring reefs of. the Great Barrier, or on one of the atolls of the Coral Sea.
