Zemitrella laevirostris is a species of sea snail, a marine gastropod mollusk in the family Columbellidae, the dove snails.MolluscaBase eds. (2023). MolluscaBase. Zemitrella laevirostris Powell, 1940. Accessed through: World Register of Marine Species at: https://www.marinespecies.org/aphia.php?p=taxdetails&id=511760 on 2023-11-11
Description The length of the shell attains , its diameter .
(Original description) The shell is small, elongate, smooth, and polished, lacking any sculpture, even on the neck, which does not show the characteristic spiral grooves. It has four and a half whorls, including a smooth, papillate protoconch of one and a half whorls. The spire is slightly taller than the aperture. The whorls are evenly rounded, and the suture is impressed.
The outer lip is scarcely thickened, but it shows a distinct, shallow subsutural sinus. The coloration is light golden and reddish-brown, set against a white ground. The pattern is variable: in the holotype, the protoconch and the first whorl are light reddish-brown, while the succeeding whorls display a subsutural collar of reddish-brown blotches, an interrupted narrow band of the same colour, and a diffused general pattern of horizontal to slightly oblique streaks of light brown and pale grey. The entire base is almost uniformly light golden-brown.
The aperture is whitish within, except on the lower third, where the basal colour shows through. Powell, A. W. B. (1940). The marine Mollusca of the Aupourian Province, New Zealand. Transactions of the Royal Society of New Zealand. 70: 205-248
Distribution This marine species is endemic to New Zealand and occurs off Far North and Ranfurly Bank.
References
Powell, A.W.B. 1979 New Zealand Mollusca: Marine, Land and Freshwater Shells, Collins, Auckland Spencer, H.G., Marshall, B.A. & Willan, R.C. (2009). Checklist of New Zealand living Mollusca. Pp 196-219. in: Gordon, D.P. (ed.) New Zealand inventory of biodiversity. Volume one. Kingdom Animalia: Radiata, Lophotrochozoa, Deuterostomia. Canterbury University Press, Christchurch.
External links Mollusca.co.nz : image