C. owenii. Specimen of C. owenii (a questionable iype) in (he B.M.N.H.; 16.4 X 9.0 X 11.0 mm. Locality unknown.
Gray in Griffith & Pidgeon (1834) briefly described Cyllene owenii from unknown locality in the Index of the work, and supplied a ventral view figure on plate 41. This illustration does show the close-set spiral threads extending from the siphonal fasciole to the presutural ramp where the axial ribs gain prominence. Although the usual brown streaks are present in the figure, the spiral cords have been drawn in bluish-violet and the brown patch on the columella of C. owenii has been exaggerated. It is highly doubtful that the specimen illustrated by Gray in Griffith & Pidgeon (op. cit.) is the same specimen as the one in the British Museum (Nat. Hist.) and illustrated here.
Gray's labels with specimens of C. owenii in the British Museum (Nat. Hist.) enabled Sowerby (1859) to give presentable illustrations of the species, and E. A. Smith (1872) to localise the species from Whydah (= Ouidah, Dahomey, W. Africa). Fischer (1875) subsequently also reported the species from the west coast of Africa, but usually Continental authors preferred to adopt the name C. senegalensis for the species.
Cyllene owenii has a rough sculpture of close-set, flattened narrow spiral cords which are bisected by narrow axial ribs in the vicinity of the weak presutural ramp; the sutures are adpressed and form a broad sutural thread which is occasionally granulose. The shell is creamy-white or fawn and ornamented with reddish-brown bands, spots or streaks, usually arranged in 3 spiral rows on the body whorl. The brown colouring tends to spill over on to the columella in a greater or lesser degree, and this feature is clearly indicated in Petit de la Sausaye's (1853) figure of C. senegalensis and exaggerated in Gray's figure of C. owenii.