-150~200m, Trawled, North Atlantic Ocean, southern Iceland, 104.2mm.
The « Norwegian Volute Whelk » is an elegant cold-water buccinid native to the whole breadth of North Atlantic Ocean from eastern Canada to Iceland to United Kingdom, extending to North Sea and Norwegian Sea. It is an uncommon species and majority of specimens on the shell market originate from northeast Atlantic and North Sea, mostly from old collections. A carnivorous gastropod mainly preying on polychaete worms, it inhabits soft bottoms across a wide bathymetric range of -20~600m; although it is most common around -100~300m deep. The shell surface is very smooth apart from insignificant axial growth lines; very little periostracum usually remain on adult specimens. Typical shell length around 90mm., very large specimens may exceed 120mm. A widespread misspelling of its binomial name is Volutopsius norvegicus, with a V in the place of 'w’

Shell. Large, opaque, fusiform, solid, slightly glossy, and covered with a thin periostracal layer. The spire is bluntly pointed, and coeloconoid in profile because of the narrow apical whorls and the swelling of the last one. There are 5-6 whorls, which are tumid and meet at moderately deep sutures placed a little abapical of the periphery of the upper whorl. The surface shows little ornament and may be smooth, but growth lines are commonly present and a few slight spiral lines may occur. There may also be a slight swelling below the suture.
The protoconch comprises about 2.5 whorls which arc smooth and usually inflated. It measures 4.0-4.5 mm in diameter and about 3.0 mm in height.
Aperture. A large oval opening, pointed adapically and running widely into the siphonal canal at its base; it is surrounded by a peristome. The outer lip arises near the periphery of the last whorl and follows a smooth curve to the base, not quite semicircular because of some peripheral flattening, more like the curve of an axe head. In older specimens the lip is slightly flared. The canal is hardly separable from the aperture, and is short, wide and open. The columella is distinctly flexuous, and the inner lip, little everted over the columellar region, expands to form a considerable area of callus over the last whorl. There is no siphonal fasciolc. There may be a tubercle in the throat on the last whorl.
Colour. Cream or white, apex darker; throat often with a pink tinge.
Size. Up to about 100 x 60 mm. Last whorl = 65-70% of total shell height; aperture = c. 60% of total height.
Animal. The head is represented by a broad transverse ledge bearing the mouth (= proboscis pouch opening) on its underside, and two tentacles, each thick at the base, where it bears an eye, and thinner distally. The mantle is drawn out to form a long siphon. Males possess a penis. The foot is large, rounded anteriorly with small recurved corners, and bluntly pointed behind. The operculum is wing-shaped.
Colour. Light cream to orange-yellow with many small purple lines.
Geographical distribution. A northern species, probably circumboreal, which reaches into the North Sea, but not into the Skagerrak or Kattegat. It extends to Spitzbergen, Iceland, Greenland, Arctic Canada south to Newfoundland; also in the Sea of Okhotsk.
Habitat. Soft bottoms 90-600 m deep. The animals are rarely found.

From Spitzbergen, E and W Greenland southwards on the continental shelves, to the North Sea, Shetland, The Faroes, and Iceland (Odhner, 1915; Thorson, 1944; Schlesh, 1926; Sars, 1878; Jeffreys, 1867), and from Arctic Canada, c. 95° W, to George's Bank, 42° N (Macpherson, 1971 and unpublished material in USNM). It is restricted to the continental shelf, 25 m (E Greenland, Thorson, 1941) to about 600 m (numerous records) except S of Iceland where it occurs down to 2000 m (unpublished material in ZMC).