Benthonella tenella is a species of small sea snail, a marine gastropod mollusk or micromollusk in the family Rissoidae.
Distribution This species occurs in the Atlantic Ocean off Southeast Brazil.
Description The maximum recorded shell length is 9 mm.Welch J. J. (2010). "The "Island Rule" and Deep-Sea Gastropods: Re-Examining the Evidence". PLoS ONE 5(1): e8776. .
(Described as Benthonella gaza) The shell is elongated, glistening opaque white, and extremely thin, featuring two and a half larval whorls and five later whorls. The protoconch is trochiform, brown, and polished, with a single carina above the periphery. The other whorls are full and rounded, with the earlier ones marked with a few faint flexuous transverse waves, and the rest displaying only lines of growth. The whorls are full and rounded, and the suture is distinct. The base is full and rounded, with a small umbilicus, in front of which the thin inner lip is reflected. The aperture is rounded, and the lip is slightly reflected but not thickened.
Habitat Minimum recorded depth is 10 m. Maximum recorded depth is 5500 m.
References
Lozouet, P., 2014 Occurrence of Benthonella Dall 1889 in the Cenozoic (Paleogene) of France: a present-day abyssal and bathyal mollusc (Gastropoda: Caenogastropoda: Rissoidae). Archiv für Molluskenkunde, 143(1): 21-32, 8 figures.
External links Serge GOFAS, Ángel A. LUQUE, Joan Daniel OLIVER, José TEMPLADO & Alberto SERRA (2021) - The Mollusca of Galicia Bank (NE Atlantic Ocean); European Journal of Taxonomy 785: 1–114