| Erosaria turdus | |
|---|---|
| A shell of Erosaria turdus, anterior end towards the right | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Mollusca |
| Class: | Gastropoda |
| (unranked): | clade Caenogastropoda clade Hypsogastropoda clade Littorinimorpha |
| Superfamily: | Cypraeoidea |
| Family: | Cypraeidae |
| Subfamily: | Erosariinae |
| Genus: | Erosaria |
| Species: | E. turdus |
| Binomial name | |
| Erosaria turdus (Lamarck, 1810) |
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| Synonyms[1][2] | |
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Erosaria turdus , common name : the thrush cowrie, is a species of sea snail, a cowry, a marine gastropod mollusk in the family Cypraeidae, the cowries.[1]
Contents |
The shells of these uncommon cowries reach on average 30–38 millimetres (1.2–1.5 in) of length, with a minimum size of 16 millimetres (0.63 in) and a maximum size of 62 millimetres (2.4 in). They are quite variable in pattern and color. The shape is more or less oval, the dorsum surface is smooth and shiny, the basic color is whitish, yellowish or greenish, with small brown spots all over, becoming larger on the sides. The interior of the shell, visible through the aperture, may be light purple. The subspecies Erosaria turdus dilatata usually bears a large irregular patch on the dorsum. The margins are white, with several brown dots and a pronounced labial 'callus'. The base is white or pale pink, sometimes with a small brown mark in the middle. The long and wide aperture shows about 15 teeth on the columellar and labial teeth. The shells of Erosaria turdus are externally quite similar to Erosaria lamarckii. In the living cowries the mantle is yellowish or beige, with long tree-shaped brown papillae.
This species is distributed in the Red Sea, in the Gulf of Oman and in the North West of the Indian Ocean, along Pakistan, India, in the East Africa (Comores, Eritrea, Kenya, Madagascar, Mozambique, Oman, Somalia, Tanzania), in the East Coast of South Africa and - as a non-indigenous species - in European waters and in the Mediterranean Sea (Lampedusa, Israel, Djerba Island in Tunisia, Libya, Egypt), where it has been introduced through the Suez Canal.
These cowries live in intertidal shallow waters at 2–10 metres (6 ft 7 in–32 ft 10 in) of depth. In the Indian Ocean they prefer the coral reef, while in the Mediterranean Sea they can be found on algal turf or sandy and muddy sea bed.