Stilifer astericola is a parasitic sea snail, a marine gastropod mollusk in the taxonomic family Eulimidae. It is the type species of the genus Stilifer.
Description The length of the shell attains 8.6 mm, its diameter 6.3 mm.
The shell is large and globose, with a slender acuminate apex that is usually decollated. It is thin, semitransparent, and bluish-white. The postnuclear whorls are strongly inflated and marked by strong incremental lines, which are almost threadlike and irregularly disposed. The appressed portion of the whorls appears as a bluish band. The body whorl is slightly flattened in the middle, and the periphery is well rounded. The base is short, strongly rounded, and marked like the spire. The aperture is large; the posterior angle is acute; the outer lip is very thin, strongly curved, and strongly protracted in the middle to form a clawlike element; the inner lip is slender and strongly curved; and the parietal wall is covered by a scarcely perceptible callus. The radula is absent.
Distribution The species was discovered in Galapagos Archipelago by Hugh Cuming. It was found burrowing in different parts of the oral disc of Heliaster cumingi.Anders Warén: Revision of the Genera Thyca, Stilifer, Scalenostoma, Mucronalia and Echineulima (Mollusca, Prosobranchia, Eulimidae). Zoologica Scripta 9, 1980, pp. 187–210.Philip Henry Gosse (1854). Natural History – Mollusca, pp. 192. Here Stylifer astericola and Asterias Solaris: According to Christopher Mah (2009), WoRMS, Asterias solaris Carpenter, 1856 is a synonym of Heliaster cumingi (Gray, 1840); this species is not the homonym Asterias solaris Schreber, 1793, which is, according to Christopher Mah (2017), WoRMS, a synonym of Acanthaster solaris (Linnaeus, 1758).
This species occurs off the Galápagos Islands. Gbif.org: distribution
References
External links Broderip, W. J. & Sowerby, G. B. I. (1832-1833). [Descriptions of new species of shells from the collection formed by Mr. Cuming on the western coast of South America, and among the islands of the southern Pacific Ocean.. Proceedings of the Committee of Science and correspondence of the Zoological Society of London. Part II p. 60]