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Cowries
Cowrie or cowry () is the common name for a group of small to large sea snails, marine gastropod mollusks in the family Cypraeidae, the cowries. The term ''porcelain'' derives from the old Italian term for the cowrie shell (''porcellana'') due to their similar appearance. Shells of certain species have historically been used as currency in several parts of the world, as well as being used, in the past and present, very extensively in jewelry, and for other decorative and ceremonial purposes. The cowrie was the shell most widely used worldwide as shell money. It is most abundant in the Indian Ocean, and was collected in the Maldive Islands, in Sri Lanka, along the Indian Malabar coast, in Borneo and on other East Indian islands, in Maluku in the Pacific, and in various parts of the African coast from Ras Hafun to Mozambique. Cowrie shell money was important in the trade networks of Africa, South Asia, and East Asia. In the United States and Mexico, cowrie species inhabit t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cypraeidae
Cypraeidae, commonly named the cowries ( cowry), is a taxonomic family of small to large sea snails. These are marine gastropod mollusks in the superfamily Cypraeoidea, the cowries and cowry allies. Shell description Cypraeidae have adult shells which are very rounded, almost like an egg; they do not look like a typical gastropod shell. In virtually all of the species in the family Cypraeidae, the shells are extremely smooth and shiny. This is because in the living animal, the shell is nearly always fully covered with the mantle. Typically, no spire is visible in the fully adult shell, and there is a long, narrow, aperture which is lined with "teeth". Juvenile cowry shells are not at all similar to adult cowry shells. The juvenile shells of cowries perhaps more closely resemble the shells of some "bubble snails" in the order Cephalaspidea. Also the shells of juvenile cowries seldom exhibit the same color patterns as the adult shells do, and thus can be hard to identify to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Littorinimorpha
Littorinimorpha is a large order of snails, gastropods, consisting primarily of sea snails ( marine species), but also including some freshwater snails ( aquatic species) and land snails ( terrestrial species).Bouchet P. & Rocroi J.-P. (Ed.); Frýda J., Hausdorf B., Ponder W., Valdes A. & Warén A. 2005. ''Classification and nomenclator of gastropod families''. Malacologia: International Journal of Malacology, 47(1-2). ConchBooks: Hackenheim, Germany. . . 397 pp. http://www.vliz.be/Vmdcdata/imis2/ref.php?refid=78278 Previously, the Linnaean taxonomy used in the taxonomy of the Gastropoda by Ponder & Lindberg (1997) ranked like this: subclass Orthogastropoda, superorder Caenogastropoda, order Sorbeoconcha, suborder Hypsogastropoda, infraorder Littorinimorpha. The order Littorinimorpha contains many gastropoda families that were formerly placed in the order Mesogastropoda, as introduced by J. Thiele in his work from 1921. Evidence for this group being monophyletic is scanty. In ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cypraea Chinensis With Fully Extended Mantle
''Cypraea'' is a genus of medium-sized to large sea snails or cowries, marine gastropod mollusks in the family Cypraeidae, the cowries. Species Species within the genus ''Cypraea'' include: * † '' Cypraea ficoides'' (Hutton, 1873) * '' Cypraea pantherina'' Lightfoot, 1786 * † '' Cypraea porcellus'' Brocchi, 1814 * ''Cypraea tigris'' Linnaeus, 1758 ;Nomen dubium: * ''Cypraea contrastriata'' Perry, 1811 (synonyms: ''Arestorides argus contrastriata'' (Perry, 1811); ''Cypraea argus contrastriata'' Perry, 1811; ''Talparia argus contrastriata'' (Perry, 1811) ) Synonyms Almost all species previously belonging to ''Cypraea'' have been reassigned to other genera within the family Cypraeidae: * ''Cypraea achatidea'' Sowerby, 1837: synonym of '' Schilderia achatidea'' * ''Cypraea acicularis'' Gmelin, 1791: synonym of '' Erosaria acicularis'' * ''Cypraea aenigma'' Lorenz, 2002: synonym of '' Nesiocypraea aenigma'' * ''Cypraea albuginosa'' Gray, 1825: synonym of '' Erosaria albugin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Shell Money
Shell money is a medium of exchange similar to coin money and other forms of commodity money, and was once commonly used in many parts of the world. Shell money usually consisted of whole or partial sea shells, often worked into beads or otherwise shaped. The use of shells in trade began as direct commodity exchange, the shells having use-value as body ornamentation. The distinction between beads as commodities and beads as money has been the subject of debate among economic anthropologists. Shell money has appeared in the Americas, Asia, Africa and Australia. The most familiar form may be the wampum created by the Indigenous peoples of the East Coast of North America, ground beads cut from the purple part of marine bivalve shells. The shell most widely used worldwide as currency was the shell of ''Cypraea moneta'', the money cowry. This species is most abundant in the Indian Ocean, and was collected in the Maldive Islands, in Sri Lanka, along the Malabar coast, in Borneo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Maldive Islands
Maldives (, ; dv, ދިވެހިރާއްޖެ, translit=Dhivehi Raajje, ), officially the Republic of Maldives ( dv, ދިވެހިރާއްޖޭގެ ޖުމްހޫރިއްޔާ, translit=Dhivehi Raajjeyge Jumhooriyyaa, label=none, ), is an archipelagic state located in South Asia, situated in the Indian Ocean. It lies southwest of Sri Lanka and India, about from the Asian continent's mainland. The chain of 26 atolls stretches across the equator from Ihavandhippolhu Atoll in the north to Addu Atoll in the south. Comprising a territory spanning roughly including the sea, land area of all the islands comprises , Maldives is one of the world's most geographically dispersed sovereign states and the smallest Asian country as well as one of the smallest Muslim-majority countries by land area and, with around 557,751 inhabitants, the 2nd least populous country in Asia. Malé is the capital and the most populated city, traditionally called the "King's Island" where the ancient royal dy ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cypraeoidea
Cypraeoidea, the cowries and cowry allies, is a superfamily of sea snails, marine gastropods included in the clade Littorinimorpha. This superfamily had been called Cypraeacea and was named by Rafinesque in 1815.MolluscaBase (2018). Cypraeoidea Rafinesque, 1815. Accessed through: World Register of Marine Species at: http://www.marinespecies.org/aphia.php?p=taxdetails&id=14774 on 2018-07-18 Shell description This superfamily of sea snails have adult shells which do not look like typical gastropod shells because the spire of the shell is not visible in adults, instead the shells are: often quite rounded in shape, varying from globular to elongate, and with a long, very narrow, aperture which is sometimes toothed. The snails in these families have no operculum. The shells of almost every species in this superfamily are very smooth and shiny, and this is because in the living animal, the shell is nearly always fully covered with the mantle. The largest known fossil cowry was ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Caenogastropoda
Caenogastropoda is a taxonomic clade, a large diverse group which are mostly sea snails and other marine gastropod mollusks, but also includes some freshwater snails and some land snails. The clade is the most diverse and ecologically successful of the gastropods. Caenogastropoda contains many families of shelled marine molluscs – including the periwinkles, cowries, wentletraps, moon snails, murexes, cone snails and turrids – and constitutes about 60% of all living gastropods. Biology The Caenogastropoda exhibit torsion, and thus are included in what was previously called the Streptoneura (meaning ''twisted nerves''), also known as Prosobranchia (meaning ''gills forward''). Specifically, they are characterized by having only a single auricle in the heart and a single pair of gill leaflets, and are equivalent to the Monotocardia or Pectinobranchia of older authors. Taxonomy The taxon Caenogastropoda was first established by Leslie Reginald Cox in 1960 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gastropoda
The gastropods (), commonly known as snails and slugs, belong to a large taxonomic class of invertebrates within the phylum Mollusca called Gastropoda (). This class comprises snails and slugs from saltwater, from freshwater, and from land. There are many thousands of species of sea snails and slugs, as well as freshwater snails, freshwater limpets, and land snails and slugs. The class Gastropoda contains a vast total of named species, second only to the insects in overall number. The fossil history of this class goes back to the Late Cambrian. , 721 families of gastropods are known, of which 245 are extinct and appear only in the fossil record, while 476 are currently extant with or without a fossil record. Gastropoda (previously known as univalves and sometimes spelled "Gasteropoda") are a major part of the phylum Mollusca, and are the most highly diversified class in the phylum, with 65,000 to 80,000 living snail and slug species. The anatomy, behavior, feeding, a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Central California
Central California is generally thought of as the middle third of the state, north of Southern California, which includes Los Angeles, and south of Northern California, which includes San Francisco. It includes the northern portion of the San Joaquin Valley (which itself is the southern portion of the Central Valley, beginning at the Sacramento–San Joaquin River Delta), part of the Central Coast, the central hills of the California Coast Ranges and the foothills and mountain areas of the central Sierra Nevada. Central California is considered to be west of the crest of the Sierra Nevada. East of the Sierra is Eastern California. The largest cities in the region (over 50,000 population), from most to least populous, are Fresno, Bakersfield, Stockton, Modesto, Salinas, Visalia, Clovis, Santa Maria, Merced, Turlock, Madera, Lodi, Tulare, Porterville, Hanford and Delano. Over time, droughts and wildfires have increased in frequency and become less seasonal and m ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Malabar Coast
The Malabar Coast is the southwestern coast of the Indian subcontinent. Geographically, it comprises the wettest regions of southern India, as the Western Ghats intercept the moisture-laden monsoon rains, especially on their westward-facing mountain slopes. The term is used to refer to the entire Indian coast from the western coast of Konkan to the tip of India at Kanyakumari. The peak of Anamudi, which is also the point of highest altitude in India outside the Himalayas, and Kuttanad, which is the point of least elevation in India, lie on the Malabar Coast. Kuttanad, also known as ''The Rice Bowl of Kerala'', has the lowest altitude in India, and is also one of the few places in the world where cultivation takes place below sea level. The region parallel to the Malabar Coast gently slopes from the eastern highland of Western Ghats ranges to the western coastal lowland. The moisture-laden winds of the Southwest monsoon, on reaching the southernmost point of the Indian Pe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., federal district, five major unincorporated territories, nine United States Minor Outlying Islands, Minor Outlying Islands, and 326 Indian reservations. The United States is also in Compact of Free Association, free association with three Oceania, Pacific Island Sovereign state, sovereign states: the Federated States of Micronesia, the Marshall Islands, and the Palau, Republic of Palau. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by area, third-largest country by both land and total area. It shares land borders Canada–United States border, with Canada to its north and Mexico–United States border, with Mexico to its south and has maritime borders with the Bahamas, Cuba, Russia, and other nations. With a population of over 333 million, it is the List of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
East Asia
East Asia is the eastern region of Asia, which is defined in both geographical and ethno-cultural terms. The modern states of East Asia include China, Japan, Mongolia, North Korea, South Korea, and Taiwan. China, North Korea, South Korea and Taiwan are all unrecognised by at least one other East Asian state due to severe ongoing political tensions in the region, specifically the division of Korea and the political status of Taiwan. Hong Kong and Macau, two small coastal quasi-dependent territories located in the south of China, are officially highly autonomous but are under Chinese sovereignty. Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, Mainland China, Hong Kong, and Macau are among the world's largest and most prosperous economies. East Asia borders Siberia and the Russian Far East to the north, Southeast Asia to the south, South Asia to the southwest, and Central Asia to the west. To the east is the Pacific Ocean and to the southeast is Micronesia (a Pacific Ocean island group, clas ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
