| Ethalia | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Two views of a shell of Ethalia sanguinea | |
Scientific classification  | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Mollusca |
| Class: | Gastropoda |
| Subclass: | Vetigastropoda |
| Order: | Trochida |
| Superfamily: | Trochoidea |
| Family: | Trochidae |
| Subfamily: | Umboniinae |
| Genus: | Ethalia H. Adams & A. Adams, 1854 |
| Type species | |
| Rotella guamensis | |
| Synonyms | |
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Ethalia is a genus of sea snails, marine gastropod mollusks in the subfamily Umboniinae of the family Trochidae, the top snails.
The species are moderate-sized. The orbicular shell is turbinately depressed. The whorls are convex, smooth or transversely striated, the last one rounded at the periphery. They have a mottled or streaked color-pattern. The umbilicus is partly closed by a callus deposit. The columellar lip ends anteriorly in an obtuse dilated callus. The callus emitted at the columellar-parietal angle of the aperture is tongue-shaped, closing the umbilicus except a rather narrow chink, or even entirely, in some species.
(More recent description) The shell is relatively large for the subfamily Umboniinae (up to 25 mm in diameter); It is lenticular, globose-lenticular, or subglobose; the surface is smooth and glossy, or dull with fine, closely spaced spiral lirae; the axial sculptureis weak or nearly obsolete. The umbilicus is usually present, commonly bordered by a thickened rim and variably obstructed by a callus deposition associated with the umbilical funicle and parietal lip. The outer lip is simple, with a smooth inner surface lacking denticles or lirae. The operculum is corneous, thick, multispiral but only loosely coiled; whorl overlap narrow, the peripheral fringe is scarcely developed, and spiral microsculpture is absent. The radula is with relatively robust base-plates on both the rachidian and lateral teeth; inner marginal tooth transitional, bearing a reduced terminal cusp. Outer marginal teeth with 3–10 principal cusps, dominated by a large, bluntly lanceolate central denticle that is flanked basally on its outer side by one or two smaller accessory denticles. The ctenidium is bipectinate, with the anterior portion remaining free.
This marine genus occurs in the Central and East Indian Ocean, off East Africa, off Indo-Malaysia, and off Australia.
Species within the genus Ethalia include:
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