Botryphallus epidauricus (Brusina, 1866)
Cantabrian Sea to Canarias, Madeira to Mediterranean.
Grazer and detritus feeder in shallow littoral gardens. Host of the Pyramidellid Odostomia microeques Rolán & Templado, 1999 – cf. “High-tidal molluscan assemblage from a Madeiran boulder beach”, Iberus 18 (2), 2000, p.87, fig.34.

Original taxon: Cingula epidaurica.
Shallow grit, Peyrefitte Cape, Cerbère, Eastern Pyrenees, Occitania, S. France. 2,25mm.
Cingula epidaurica in S. Brusina: Contribuzione pella fauna dei molluschi dalmati, Vienna 1866, plate III.
 
« Testa minuta, aciculato-subcylindrica, obtusa, laevissima, tenui, hyalina; anfractibus convexiusculis, sutura mediocriter impressa; apertura ovata dilatata, superne acuminata, labro simplici. — Minute aculiform Cingula, almost cylindrical, obtuse, very smooth, tenuous, glassy. It has five rather convex whorls, separated by a suture quite shallow; at the suture one observes a line – this depends on the transparency of the shell – that lets the internal part visible. Aperture ovate, dilated, high as the half of the last whorl, and more acute in the upper part; lip sharp, not enlarged, very insensibly folded. »
Here, a strongly folded aperture.
The species was named after the ancient toponym of Cavtat, a harbour near Dubrovnik in Croatia: “Epidaurus”, and not after the famous Epidavros of Argolis, Peloponnese, Greece.
Cap Ras, Llançà, Girona, Catalunya, NE. Spain. 2mm.
A slender species.
Beached specimen from Peyrefitte Cape, Cerbère. 1,9mm.
The aperture is narrower and less protruding than in Peringiella elegans. – Shallow grit, Anse Bernardi, Port-Vendres, Eastern Pyrenees. 2,4mm.
Port-Vendres. 2mm.
Original pictures provided by S. Clanzig (FR).
– (CC BY-NC-SA) –

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