Little Egg Cowry

Q: Where can you find Little Egg Cowry?

Little Egg Cowry can be found in: Egypt East, Laccadive Islands, Mariana Islands, Visayas, Saudi Arabia West, Malaysia East, Taiwan, Marshall Islands, Malaysia West, Somalia East, Vanuatu, Sudan, Brunei, Myanmar, Eritrea, Malapascua Island, Australia, Kenya, India, Israel, Japan South, India East, India West, Thailand East, Thailand West, Israel South, Somalia North, Australia East, Sri Lanka, Maldives, Vietnam, Seychelles, Cambodia, Papua New Guinea, Singapore, Tanzania, Malaysia, South Africa, Red Sea, Japan, Indonesia, Chagos Islands, Mozambique, Jordan, Palau, Philippines, Solomon Islands, New Caledonia, Micronesia, Egypt, Tonga and Samoa, Yemen, Mascarene Islands, Madagascar, Djibouti, Comoros, Fiji, Thailand, Saudi Arabia, Somalia.

Calpurnus verrucosus

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Max Weight

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Max Depth

50 m

Calpurnus verrucosus is a species of sea snail, a cowry, a marine gastropod mollusk in the family Ovulidae, the cowries.

Other names: Umbilical Egg Shell or Warty/Little Egg Cowry,

Description

The shells of this species reach 10–40 millimetres (0.39–1.57 in) of length. This cowry is pure white, smoot and ovate, the base is flat and wide. The anterior and posterior extremities have a slight purple coloration, with a yellow circle at the edge of a depressed pustule (hence the Latin name of verrucosus ot this species). The mantle of the living cowries is white and completely covered by small brown spots. Also the foot is white with dark dots and can be extended widely around the base of the shell.

Distribution

This species is mainly distributed in the tropical South East Africa and in the Western Pacific Ocean, in the waters along Madagascar, Mascarene Islands, Red Sea, Indonesia, Thailand and Philippines.

Habitat

Living cowries can mainly be encountered in daylight under soft corals, sponges and rocks in shallow to deep waters at a depth of 20-50 m. They primarily feed on the polyps of Leather Corals (Sacrophyton and Lobophytum species, Alcyoniidae). At night they spread their mantles on the top of the soft coral and start grazing on the polyps.