Titanostrombus goliath

Titanostrombus goliath, previously known as Lobatus goliath and Strombus goliath, common name the goliath conch, is a species of very large edible sea snail, a marine gastropod mollusk in the family Strombidae, the true conchs. T. goliath is one of the largest mollusks of the Western Atlantic Ocean, and also one of the largest species among the Strombidae. It was once considered endemic to Brazil, but specimens have also been recently found in the waters of Barbados. Brazilian common names for this species include búzio de chapéu or búzio (in Ceará state), and búzio de aba or buzo in (Bahia state). Some phylogenetic hypotheses consider T. goliath as closely related to the queen conch, Aliger gigas. This species was first named as Strombus goliath by German theologian Johann Samuel Schröter in 1805. It is named after the biblical character Goliath, who is traditionally considered to have been of tremendous size. The family Strombidae has undergone an extensive taxonomic revision recently and many subgenera, including Eustrombus, were elevated to genus level by some authors. Petuch recombined this species as Titanostrombus goliath in 2004, and Landau et al. recombined it as Lobatus goliath in 2008. In 2020, the species was recombined as Titanostrombus goliath by Maxwell and colleagues. The type locality of this species is Paracuru beach, north of Fortaleza, in Ceará state (Brazil). The phylogenetic relationships among the Strombidae have been mainly accessed on two occasions, by Simone (2005) and Latiolais (2006). However, Titanostrombus goliath was only included in Simone's analysis. Simone proposed a cladogram (a tree of descent) based on an extensive morpho-anatomical analysis of representatives of Aporrhaidae, Strombidae, Xenophoridae and Struthiolariidae, which included T. goliath. With the exception of Lambis and Terebellum, the remaining taxa were previously allocated within the genus Strombus, including T. goliath.