THE PAGODA SEASHELL

This seashell is Columbarium pagoda (Lesson, 1831). It lives offshore, in moderately deep water, and most specimens of this species are collected via a “drag net.” Otherwise, specimens are usually found  broken. This gastropod lives mainly in the area from Japan to the East China Sea and South China Sea and lives in sandy to muddy bottoms (50 to 200 m deep). It is rare in shallower depths.

Figure 1

                                                   Figure 2

Figures 1 and 2. Apertural (front view) and abapertural (back view)  of Columbarium pagoda (height 65 mm = a typical height for the some of the largest specimens of this species).

The shell is fusiform with an elongated spire and a long anterior canal with small spines on the upper half of the anterior canal. This gastropod is predatory/carnivorous. It feeds mainly on tube-dwelling polychaetes (worm-like animals). 

Classification

Kingdom Animalia

Phylum Mollusca

Class Gastropoda

Order Neogastropoda

Family Columbariidae

Genus Columbarium

Species pagoda

The shell of this species ranges from white to brownish.

The name “columbarium” is also used for a cineramum = a place where funerany urns containing cremated remains of the dead are store.

REFERENCE

Abbott, R.T. and S. P. Dance, 1982. P. 158. Compendium of seashells. A full-color guide to more than 4,200 of the world’s marine shells. A color guide to more than 4,200 of the wolrd’s marine shells. E.P. Dutton, New York. 411 pp.