''Erronea errones'', the wandering cowry or erroneous cowry, is a species of

sea snail Sea snail is a common name for slow-moving marine gastropod molluscs, usually with visible external shells, such as whelk or abalone. They share the taxonomic class Gastropoda with slugs, which are distinguished from snails primarily by the ...

, a cowry, a marine

gastropod 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. T ...

mollusk in the family Cypraeidae, the cowries.

Description

These very common shells reach on average of length, with a maximum size of and a minimum size of . The dorsum is usually pale brown or greenish, with very variable patterns of darker greenish trasversal bands or spots. The base and the teeth of the aperture are white. In the living cowries the papillose greenish mantle grants the camouflage.

Distribution

This species is distributed in the East Indian Ocean along South India,

Andaman Islands The Andaman Islands () are an archipelago in the northeastern Indian Ocean about southwest off the coasts of Myanmar's Ayeyarwady Region. Together with the Nicobar Islands to their south, the Andamans serve as a maritime boundary between th ...

, Madagascar and Tanzania, as well in West Pacific Ocean along Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines,

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, Samoa and

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

Habitat

These cowries live in shallow tropical waters at low tide, usually under rocks or stones, feeding on algae.

Synonyms

* Cypraea errones, Linnaeus, 1758 * Cypraea oblonga, Gmelin, J.F., 1791 * Cypraea bimaculata, (Gray 1824) * Cypraea coxi, (Brazier 1872) * Cypraea pusilla, Gmelin, J.F., 1791 * Cypraea coerulescens, Schroter, J.S., 1804 : E Australia * Cypraea ovum, Kiener, L.C., 1843 * Cypraea chrysophaea, Melvill, J.C., 1888 * Cypraea compressa, Dautzenberg, Ph., 1903 * Erronea nimiproba, Iredale, T., 1935 * Cypraea nimiserrans, Iredale, T., 1935 * Cypraea magerrones, Iredale, T., 1939 : E Australia * Cypraea probaIredale, T., 1939 : W Australia * Erronea kalavo, Steadman, W.R. & B.C. Cotton, 1943 * Erronea vivili, Steadman, W.R. & B.C. Cotton, 1943 * Palmadusta asellus fusca (f), Coen, G.S., 1949 * Erronea fusca, Coen, G.S., 1949

References

* Verdcourt, B. (1959). ''The cowries of the East African Coast: Supplement II''. JEANHS XXIII (100): 130-134 * Natarajan, A V (1954) - On the breeding habits of the Cowry Erronea errones (Linne) - Current Science, 23 (7). pp. 225–226

External links

Biolib
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Erronea errones
errones Gastropods described in 1758 Taxa named by Carl Linnaeus {{Cypraeidae-stub