Shell of the Week: The Worsfold's Wentletrap

Epitonium worsfoldi reaches 22 mm (about 0.87 inch) and is known to live in the Bahamas Islands, Cuba, Brazil, and possibly in other parts of the western Atlantic Ocean. Its stocky but elegant shell is adorned with 17–21 ribs per whorl, and there are no additional sculpture elements between successive ribs. This species was named in 1994 by Robert Robertson in what is now the National Shell Museum & Aquarium’s own malacological journal, The Nautilus. Dr Robertson, formerly a curator at the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, named the species after Mr Jack Worsfold, who resided and collected extensively in the Bahamas. The original description included images of the living animal, its eggs, and sea anemone host. The shell illustrated was originally in the Bahamian collection of the late Colin Redfern, which he donated to the Museum in 2014 (the label in the image is his own handwriting). Epitonium worsfoldi is also treated and illustrated as “species 301” in Redfern’s excellent 2013 book, Bahamian Seashells.

Epitonium worsfoldi from Abaco, Bahamas. Illustration: Patricia A. Starkey

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