Buccinidae

The Buccinidae are a very large and diverse taxonomic family of large sea snails, often known as whelks or true whelks.

True whelks are mostly marine (with some genera freshwater) gastropod mollusks in the clade Neogastropoda. The family includes more than 1500 species.

Habitat

The true whelks occur worldwide in all seas from tropical oceans to the cold seas of the Arctic Ocean and the Southern Ocean. They are found from the intertidal to the bathypelagic zones. Most prefer a solid bottom, but some inhabit sandy substrates.

Some genera from the Buccinidae are freshwater, for example genus Clea.

Description

The shells of species in this family are moderate to large in size, conical to fusiform in shape. The shell often has deep sutures. The shell surface is generally smooth, sometimes with a spiral and/ or axial sculpture. The thickness of the shell is more pronounced in tropical shallow-water species, while the shell of species living in moderate and colder waters is generally thin or moderately thin. The top of the whorls are more or less shouldered. The radial ribs of the shell sometimes show shoulder knobs. The aperture is large with a well-defined siphonal canal. The rim of the aperture is sometimes used to pry open the shell of bivalves. The aperture is closed by a horny operculum.