The “Maple Leaf Triton” is a most eccentric ranellid widely dirstributed across the Western Pacific region, from Japan to northern Australia and across the central Western Pacific islands. It is replaced by its sister species Biplex bozzettii Beu, 1998 with a consistently wider shell from southern India and westward into the Indian Ocean.

A common carnivorous species, it is mostly found on sandy to gravely bottoms around -50~200m deep although occasionally deeper. The shell is much compressed in the dorsal-ventral direction and has regular wing-like varices every 180 degrees, resulting in a flat and wide leaf-like shell; aptly described as “maple leaf” in the English vernacular name.

The varices are fragile and prone to damage, it is difficult to find a large specimen with intact varices. The intervarical space carry beaded sculpture but the beading is normally not consistent throughout, unlike B. bozzettii. Typical shell length around 65mm but it is very variable in size and giant specimens may reach even 100mm. – From Chong Chen’s post

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