The spiral shell is oblong or depressed orbicular. The
spire is prominent but short. The surface is tubercled or keeled. The
whorls show a series of short folds below the
suture. The
aperture is either oblong or transversely oval, and
longer than wide or the reverse. The interior of the shell is nacreous. There is no
operculum.
Stomatia is closely allied to Stomatella, differing in the generally more elongated shell with a series of short folds or puckers below the sutures. Usually the
body whorl has a tuberculous carina.
The animal is too large to entirely enter the shell. The foot is large, fleshy, tubercular, greatly produced posteriorly. The epipodium is fringed, with a more prominent fimbriated lobe behind the left tentacle, and on the right there is a slightly projecting fold or gutter leading to the respiratory cavity. There are digitated intertentacular lobes.[3]
Distribution
This marine genus occurs in tropical Indo-West Pacific,
Oceania,
Korea and
Australia.
Helbling, 1779: Abhandlungen einer Privatgesellschaft in Böhmen zur Aufnahme der Mathematik, der vaterländischen Geschichte und der Naturgeschichte, 4: 124
Higo, S., Callomon, P. & Goto, Y. (2001) Catalogue and Bibliography of the Marine Shell-Bearing Mollusca of Japan. Gastropoda Bivalvia Polyplacophora Scaphopoda Type Figures. Elle Scientific Publications, Yao, Japan, 208 pp.