Cryptocypraea dillwyni (Schilder, 1922)
Dillwyn's cowry, 11-17mm
Cryptocypraea dillwyni
resembles the chick pea cowries in shape, but its ends do not stick out quite
as much. The shell ranges from faintly yellow to light yellow-orange with white
spots. Living animals are very rare and found exclusively at night in seaward
reef surge channel caves, where they seem to prefer being well up off the surge
channel floor at the end of the channel near the steep seaward slope at depths
ranging from about 7-16m. The mantle has long papillae that resemble those of
the much more common Nucleolaria
nucleus, so it is often hard to tell which you are seeing until the
mantle retracts. Empty shells are sometimes found in the bottoms of surge channels.
The cowry was named for a 19th century British conchologist named Dillwyn. Specimens
are known from Polynesia (excluding Hawaii) up into Micronesia.
15.1mm, 19 August 1988
Created
1 April 2008
Updated 23 February 2020
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