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426 American Seashells
Subgenus Moerella Fischer 1887
Tellina saluionea Carpenter Salmon Tellin
Aleutian Islands to San Pedro, California.
Plate 3iy
/4 inch in length, ovalish, with a short, blunt posterior end. Ligament
behind the beaks prominent. Dorsal margin in front of beaks almost straight.
Color chalky-white, commonly with a pinkish cast. Periostracum smooth,
thin, yellowish tan. Characterized by about 4 to 7 prominent, concentric,
former growth-stop lines which are usually stained dark-brown. Common
from low tide to 34 fathoms in sand. Do not confuse with meropsis.
Tellina 7neropsis Dall Meropsis Tellin
San Diego, California, to the Gulf of Cahfornia.
Plate 30U
% inch in length, ovalish, pure white, smoothish, with exceedingly
fine growth lines. Surface silky, but rarely with an iridescent sheen. Beaks
slightly toward the posterior end. Ligament not prominent and light-brown.
Without growth stoppage lines. See T. sahnonea. Common from shore to
15 fathoms.
Tellina carpenteri Dall Carpenter's Tellin
Forrester Island, Alaska, to the Gulf of California.
Vs inch in length, moderately elongate, with a rounded anterior end
and rather truncate posterior end. Ligament short. Color cream, whitish
and commonly blushed with watermelon-pink inside and out. It also has
a faint iridescent sheen. Found very abundantly in many localities in mud
and sand from shore to 369 fathoms.
Subgenus Scissula Dall 1900
Tellina similis Sowerby Candy Stick Tellin
South half of Florida, the Bahamas and western Caribbean.
Plate 40m; figure 86e
I inch in length, moderately elongate, moderately compressed, thin
but fairly strong. Color opaque-white with a yellowish blush and with 6
to 1 2 short radial rays of red. Interior yellowish with red rays or solid pink
or yellow. A red splotch commonly occurs on the hinge in front of the
cardinal teeth. Sculpture of concentric growth lines and numerous fine
concentric threads njohich cross the shell a-t an oblique angle. Common on
sand fiats. T. decora Say is the same species.