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420 American Seashells
close together. Posterior end with wavy ribs consisting of fine mud particles
laid down over the shell by the animal. There is an enclosed, elongate furrow
between the beaks and the hinge. Color yellowish white. Found in
burrow holes in coral rocks. Not uncommon.
Subgenus Fetricolaria Stoliczka 1870
Fetricola pholadiformis Lamarck False Angel Wing
Gulf of St. Lawrence to the Gulf of Mexico and south,
Plate 32Z; figure 94b
2 inches in length, elongate, rather fragile and chalky-white. With
numerous radial ribs. The anterior 10 or so are larger and bear prominent
scales. Ligament external, located just posterior to the beaks. Cardinal teeth
quite long and pointed. The siphons are translucent-gray, large, tubular and
separated from each other almost to their bases. A very common clay and
peat-moss borrower.
Genus Rupellaria Fleuriau 1802
Rupellaria typica Jonas Atlantic Rupellaria
North Carolina to the south half of Florida and the West Indies.
Plate 306
About I inch in length, oblong, flattened anteriorly; compressed, usually
attenuated and gaping posteriorly. Beaks point anteriorly. Exterior gray or
whitish and with numerous, irregularly spaced, coarse radial ribs. Interior
uneven and brownish gray. This coral borer is variable in shape and uneven
in texture. It may also be truncate at the posterior end. Moderately common.
Rupellaria tellimyalis Carpenter West Coast Rupellaria
Santa Monica, California, to Mazatlan, Mexico.
Plate 3 It
I to I % inches in length. Oblong-elongate, variable in shape and out-
line due to crowding in the rock burrow. Shell fairly thick, white, except
for purplish blotches commonly behind the hinge and at the posterior end.
Radial threads are coarser at the anterior end. Growth lines are irregular
and coarse. Pallial sinus broadly rounded at its anterior end. Early or nep-
ionic shell is shaped somewhat like a Donax, smooth, translucent purplish
brown and rarely found attached at this early stage to rocks and kelp stalks.
R. californiensis Pilsbry and Lowe is identical.
Rupellaria dejiticulata Sowerby known only from Peru has a similar
nepionic shell (contrary to other reports), has a narrower, triangular pallial
sinus, and (contrary to reports) is a more fragile shell. Its anterior end is