These mollusks are said to live in sponges, but those above noted certainly showed no signs of such a habitat. Only one specimen showed any signs of annulation along the slit, and in that the appearance was confined to the part of the slit near the apex, which had long been closed. The shell in perfect condition should have nine squamous carinas, the scales being vaulted or folded into tubes. The most perfect spires I have seen showed no sign of a regularly spiral nucleus. Some of the deep-water specimens are white and striated, the scales nearly obsolete, and the shell extremely thin; but the ordinary form is pale brown, darker along the edges of the slit, which always opens downward.

Tenagodus squamatus (Blainville, 1827) Slit Wormsnail
Distribution: Texas, North Carolina to West Indies; Bermuda; Brazil. Size: 127 to 152 mm
Description: Color opaque white with whitish-gray, protoconch translucent; shape wormlike; nuclear whorls smooth and bulbous; spire conic with a smooth spiral ridge on periphery of postnuclear whorls; sculpture smooth with a distinct uninterrupted slit on the teleoconch that extends from aperture to spire, where it becomes a shallow channel; whorls distinctly separated; operculum bristly and conical.
Habitat: Found alive in sponges. Often collected dead in beach drift and coral rubble. In Texas empty shells are common on the FGB. Depth range 0 to 732 m (2400 ft). Remarks: The genus name Siliquaria is used for polychaetes. The apex often causes it to be confused as a different species, usually a turrid. See Ode (1972a); Rehder (1981); Redfern (2001).
Synonym: Siliquaria squamata Blainville, 1827.

Caribic area.