Calpurnus verrucosus, the 'Umbilical Egg Shell' or 'Warty/Little Egg Cowry', is a species

Species

In biology, a species is one of the basic units of biological classification and a taxonomic rank. A species is often defined as a group of organisms capable of interbreeding and producing fertile offspring. While in many cases this definition is adequate, more precise or differing measures are...

 of sea snail

Sea snail

Sea snail is a common name for those snails that normally live in saltwater, marine gastropod molluscs....

, a cowry

Cowry

Cowry, also sometimes spelled cowrie, plural cowries, is the common name for a group of small to large sea snails, marine gastropod molluscs in the family Cypraeidae, the cowries...

, a marine gastropod mollusk in the family

Family (biology)

In biological classification, family is* a taxonomic rank. Other well-known ranks are life, domain, kingdom, phylum, class, order, genus, and species, with family fitting between order and genus. As for the other well-known ranks, there is the option of an immediately lower rank, indicated by the...

 Ovulidae

Ovulidae

Ovulidae, common names the ovulids, cowry allies or false cowries, is a family of small to large predatory or parasitic sea snails, marine gastropod molluscs in the superfamily Cypraeoidea, the cowries and cowry allies.-Distribution:...

, the cowries.

Distribution

This species is mainly distributed in the tropical South East Africa and in the Western Pacific Ocean, in the waters along Madagascar

Madagascar

The Republic of Madagascar is an island country located in the Indian Ocean off the southeastern coast of Africa...

, Mascarene Islands

Mascarene Islands

The Mascarene Islands is a group of islands in the Indian Ocean east of Madagascar comprising Mauritius, Réunion, Rodrigues, Cargados Carajos shoals, plus the former islands of the Saya de Malha, Nazareth and Soudan banks...

, Red Sea

Red Sea

The Red Sea is a seawater inlet of the Indian Ocean, lying between Africa and Asia. The connection to the ocean is in the south through the Bab el Mandeb strait and the Gulf of Aden. In the north, there is the Sinai Peninsula, the Gulf of Aqaba, and the Gulf of Suez...

, Indonesia

Indonesia

Indonesia , officially the Republic of Indonesia , is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania. Indonesia is an archipelago comprising approximately 13,000 islands. It has 33 provinces with over 238 million people, and is the world's fourth most populous country. Indonesia is a republic, with an...

, Thailand

Thailand

Thailand , officially the Kingdom of Thailand , formerly known as Siam , is a country located at the centre of the Indochina peninsula and Southeast Asia. It is bordered to the north by Burma and Laos, to the east by Laos and Cambodia, to the south by the Gulf of Thailand and Malaysia, and to the...

 and Philippines

Philippines

The Philippines , officially known as the Republic of the Philippines , is a country in Southeast Asia in the western Pacific Ocean. To its north across the Luzon Strait lies Taiwan. West across the South China Sea sits Vietnam...

.

Description

The shells of this species reach 10–40 mm (0.393700787401575–1.6 ) 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.

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.

External links

• Biolib
• C. verrucosus
• Marine species
• Calpurnus species