Wrigleya crebrilinea
Wrigleya crebrilinea
Summary
Wrigleya crebrilinea was a small whelk that lived as an active forager on the London Clay seabed. Like related siphonate whelks, it was probably an opportunistic predator and scavenger, taking small animal prey as well as carrion when available.
A siphon would have allowed the animal to sample chemical cues in the water while it moved over soft sediment on a muscular foot. Its exact diet is not preserved, but this generalist feeding style would have made it part of the mobile clean-up and predatory community on the early Eocene sea floor.
Quick Identification
Look for: a small fusiform whelk whose spire and body whorl are wrapped in very numerous, fine, closely spaced spiral cords; these dense lines cross weaker axial folds and continue down the tapering base into a narrow siphonal canal.
Diagnostic Features
- Shell is small and slenderly fusiform; illustrated London Clay adults are around 17 mm high.
- Teleoconch whorls are covered by numerous very close-set fine spiral cords.
- Axial ribs or folds are present but are lower and less dominant than the spiral sculpture.
- The body whorl contracts gradually below mid-whorl into a narrow anterior neck.
- The aperture is elongate and continues into a narrow siphonal canal.
Fossil Details
Similar Species
Recorded Fossil Sites
No fossil-site occurrences have yet been recorded for this species.
References
- Fedosov, A. E.; Lemarcis, T.; Bouchet, P.; Harzhauser, M.; Kantor, Y. I.; Kiel, S.; Modica, M. V.; Oliverio, M.; Zaharias, P.; Puillandre, N. (2026). Phylogeny, classification, and evolutionary history of Neogastropoda. Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society, 207(3), zlag058 View reference
- Jeffery, P.; Tracey, S. (1997). The Early Eocene London Clay Formation mollusc fauna of the former Bursledon Brickworks, Lower Swanwick, Hampshire. Tertiary Research, 17(3–4), 75–137 View reference