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Resolution of life habits using multiple morphologic criteria: Shell form and life-mode in turritelliform gastropods

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 April 2016

Philip W. Signor III
Philip W. Signor III*
Affiliation:
Department of Geology, University of California, Davis, California 95616
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Abstract

Shell form is not strictly linked to life habits in modern marine turritelliform gastropods. To test the usefulness of various morphological characters in determining life-mode, I present a set of predictions giving the expected distribution of characters occurring in turritelliform snails with three different life-modes. Burrowing species should lack sculpture, possess columellar folds and a flat whorl profile, and have an orthocline or prosocline aperture. Mobile epifaunal forms should have sculpture, a rounded whorl profile, a displaced tangential aperture and a smooth columella. Sedentary forms should resemble epifaunal forms but have non-tangential apertures. These predictions were tested with a sample of 105 Recent marine species. Each hypothesis was found to be a statistically valid generalization and in 92 of the species (88%) the life habits were correctly predicted. Accuracy may be further improved by considering additional features such as ratchet sculpture and disjunct or open coiling. These patterns of shell form can be used to interpret fossil species as burrowers, or as sedentary or active epifaunal forms. For example, the unusual Devonian murchisoniid gastropod Ptychocaulus verneuili is interpreted as an active burrower.

The relatively imperfect relationship between shell form and life-mode in turritelliform gastropods, as compared to the Bivalvia, apparently results in part from the behavioral complexity of the Gastropoda. Gastropods have a repertoire of activities which would place them in different life-modes at different times; snail morphology reflects this complexity.

Type
Articles
Information
Paleobiology , Volume 8 , Issue 4 , Fall 1982 , pp. 378 - 388
Copyright
Copyright © The Paleontological Society 

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References

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