The maximum reported size of the shell is 115 mm.[2][4]
These medium-sized, very solid, axially ribbed shells are characterized by delicate blackish to reddish brown markings on a creamy background color, with a characteristic series of lines resembling a musical manuscript (hence the common name "music volute").[3]
Specimens from the Eastern Caribbean island of Barbados are pink in color (var. "carneolata"). Deeper-water Barbados examples trapped alive at around 100 m. depth are orange in color.
Ecology
Voluta musica is usually found alive in muddy and sandy substrate at depths of 5 m to 28 m.,[2] although at Barbados this species has been found with their dorsums dry as they crawl across exposed South Coast reefs at very low tide and have been trapped alive at depths of about 100 m. along the island's West Coast.[5]
It is a predatorycarnivorous species, as is the case in other Volutidae. It feeds on invertebrates, bivalves, other gastropods and on decayed material.[3]
Life cycle
Embryos develop into free-swimming planktonic marine larvae (trochophore) and later into juvenile veligers.[6]
Bibliography
Abbott, Robert Tucker (1974) - American Seashells: The Marine Mollusca of the Atlantic and Pacific Coasts of North America. 2nd ed. - Van Nostrand Reinhold Company New York
Dall, W. H. 1907. A review of the American Volutidae Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections 48 341–373.
Linnaeus, C. (1758). Systema Naturae per regna tria naturae, secundum classes, ordines, genera, species, cum characteribus, differentiis, synonymis, locis. Editio decima, reformata. Laurentius Salvius: Holmiae
Verrill, A. H. 1950. Voluta musica, its forms, distribution and operculum Conchological Club of Southern California, Minutes 102 3–7.
