Morum dennisoni

Morum dennisoni
File:Morum dennisoni from Barbados.jpg
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Mollusca
Class:	Gastropoda
Subclass:	Caenogastropoda
Order:	Neogastropoda
Family:	Harpidae
Genus:	Morum
Species:	M. dennisoni
Binomial name
Morum dennisoni (Reeve, 1842)

Morum dennisoni, Dennison's morum, named after the nineteenth-century shell collector John Dennison, is a species of sea snail, a marine gastropod mollusk in the family Harpidae, the harp snails.

Description

Specimens taken by shrimp trawlers along the continental shelf of Northern South America have rich red parietal plates whereas examples taken off West coast Barbados usually have orange parietal plates.

The species has a small vestigial operculum -and a very thin periostracum, and uses miosis to Breed

They are small mollusks, only reaching, on average, 45 mm long. There are outliers, however, that exceed 65 mm.

Distribution

This species is sometimes trapped or dredged alive off the west coast of Barbados, at depths around 100–170 meters.

Dennison Morum's can be found anywhere as south as Brazil, in South America, to as far North as North Carolina, USA.

This species has been becoming more rare as the years go on due to predation from Shrimp trawling, meaning it is an unwanted bycatch of Fishing.

History

The shells of Dennison's Morum have been seen in the history books as early as the 1600's, selling at auctions for loads of cash, referred to the "sale of the century"