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150
American Seashells

plug dome-shaped with a tiny pimple on one side. Color translucent-tan to light-brown. Old specimens are whitish, often with a purplish stain. The shell has a white band behind the aperture. C. hemphilli Bartsch and C. bakeri Bartsch are probably diminutive forms of this species. The development of the small pimple on top of the dome-shaped plug is variable.


SubgenusMeiocerasCarpenter 1858

Shells 2 to 4 mm. in length, very bulbous in the middle, smooth, and with an oblique, constricted aperture. Resembles a miniature Cadulus (Scaphopoda).

Caecum nitidum Stimpson
Little Horn Caecum
Figure 37e

Southern half of Florida and the West Indies.

2.0 mm. in length, glassy translucent-white with irregular specks or mottlings of chalk-white; bulbous in the center; apex with a lopsided, rounded plug which has a tiny projection on the highest side.

Caecum lermondi Dall from the west coast of Florida differs in having a single, moderately well-raised, circular hump around the middle of the shell. Uncommonly dredged just offshore.


Family Planaxidae
GenusPlanaxisLamarck 1822

Planaxis lineatus da Costa
Dwarf Atlantic Planaxis

14 inch in length, thick and strong; glossy-smooth when the thin, smoothish, translucent periostracum is worn away. Color whitish cream with neat, spiral bands of brown (10 in last whorl, 5 showing in whorls above). Whorls in top of spire with 4 or 5 small spiral cords, later becoming obsolete. Aperture slightly flaring, enamel-white with 10 brown dots on the edge of the outer lip. Nuclear whorls very small, glossy, translucent-brown and sharply pointed.


SubgenusSupplanaxisThiele 1929

Planaxis nucleus Bruguière
Black Atlantic Planaxis

Southeast Florida and the West Indies.

12 inch in length, resembling a thick, polished, dark-brown Littorina periwinkle. Characterized by 5 strong spiral cords which are developed on