''Charonia tritonis'',

common name In biology, a common name of a taxon or organism (also known as a vernacular name, English name, colloquial name, country name, popular name, or farmer's name) is a name that is based on the normal language of everyday life; and is often contrast ...

the Triton's trumpet or the giant triton, is a

species In biology, a species is the basic unit of classification and a taxonomic rank of an organism, as well as a unit of biodiversity. A species is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriat ...

of very large

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 ...

, a

marine Marine is an adjective meaning of or pertaining to the sea or ocean. Marine or marines may refer to: Ocean * Maritime (disambiguation) * Marine art * Marine biology * Marine debris * Marine habitats * Marine life * Marine pollution Military ...

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 ...

mollusc Mollusca is the second-largest phylum of invertebrate animals after the Arthropoda, the members of which are known as molluscs or mollusks (). Around 85,000 extant species of molluscs are recognized. The number of fossil species is est ...

in the

family Family (from la, familia) is a group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or affinity (by marriage or other relationship). The purpose of the family is to maintain the well-being of its members and of society. Idea ...

Charoniidae ''Charonia'' is a genus of very large sea snail, commonly known as Triton's trumpet or Triton snail. They are marine gastropod mollusks in the monotypic family Charoniidae. Etymology The common name "Triton's trumpet" is derived from the Gre ...

, the tritons. Reaching up to two feet (or 60 cm) in shell length this is one of the biggest mollusks in the coral reef.

Distribution

This species is found throughout the

Indo-Pacific The Indo-Pacific is a vast biogeographic region of Earth. In a narrow sense, sometimes known as the Indo-West Pacific or Indo-Pacific Asia, it comprises the tropical waters of the Indian Ocean, the western and central Pacific Ocean, and the ...

Oceans,

Red Sea The Red Sea ( ar, البحر الأحمر - بحر القلزم, translit=Modern: al-Baḥr al-ʾAḥmar, Medieval: Baḥr al-Qulzum; or ; Coptic: ⲫⲓⲟⲙ ⲛ̀ϩⲁϩ ''Phiom Enhah'' or ⲫⲓⲟⲙ ⲛ̀ϣⲁⲣⲓ ''Phiom ǹšari''; ...

included.

Description

Feeding habits

''C. tritonis'' is one of the few animals to feed on the crown-of-thorns starfish, '' Acanthaster planci''. Occasional plagues of this large and destructive starfish have killed extensive areas of coral on the

Great Barrier Reef The Great Barrier Reef is the world's largest coral reef system composed of over 2,900 individual reefs and 900 islands stretching for over over an area of approximately . The reef is located in the Coral Sea, off the coast of Queensland, A ...

of Australia and the western Pacific reefs. The triton has been described as tearing the starfish to pieces with its file-like

radula The radula (, ; plural radulae or radulas) is an anatomical structure used by molluscs for feeding, sometimes compared to a tongue. It is a minutely toothed, chitinous ribbon, which is typically used for scraping or cutting food before the food ...

Human use

The shell is well known as a decorative object, and is sometimes modified for use as a trumpet (such as the Japanese '' horagai'', the Maldivian ''

sangu Sangu may refer to: * Sangu language (Gabon) * Sangu language (Tanzania) * Sanghu, Taplejung, Nepal * Sangu River, Bangladesh * Sangu (armour) ''Sangu'' is the term for the three armour components that protected the extremities of the samurai ...

'' or the Māori '' pūtātara''). Much debate has occurred on whether plagues of

crown-of-thorns starfish The crown-of-thorns starfish (frequently abbreviated to COTS), ''Acanthaster planci'', is a large starfish that preys upon hard, or stony, coral polyps (Scleractinia). The crown-of-thorns starfish receives its name from venomous thorn-like spines ...

are natural or are caused by overfishing of the few organisms that can eat this starfish, including ''C. tritonis''. In 1994, Australia proposed that ''C. tritonis'' should be put on the

CITES CITES (shorter name for the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, also known as the Washington Convention) is a multilateral treaty to protect endangered plants and animals from the threats of intern ...

list, thereby attempting to protect the species. Because of a lack of trade data concerning this seashell, the Berne Criteria from CITES were not met, and the proposal was consequently withdrawn. While this species may be protected in Australia and other countries (such as India),India Ministry of Environment and Forests Notification S.O. 665(E)
. New Delhi, 11 July 2001.] it can be legally traded and is found for sale in many shell shops around the world and on the internet.

References

Bibliography

External links

doriss.ffessm.fr

na.oceana.org

cites.org
(

PDF Portable Document Format (PDF), standardized as ISO 32000, is a file format developed by Adobe in 1992 to present documents, including text formatting and images, in a manner independent of application software, hardware, and operating systems. ...

) * Charoniidae Gastropods described in 1758 Taxa named by Carl Linnaeus {{Caenogastropoda-stub