Monetaria annulus

Monetaria annulus
A dorso-lateral view of a shell of Monetaria annulus, anterior end towards the right
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Mollusca
Class:	Gastropoda
(unranked):	clade Caenogastropoda clade Hypsogastropoda clade Littorinimorpha
Superfamily:	Cypraeoidea
Family:	Cypraeidae
Genus:	Monetaria
Species:	M. annulus
Binomial name
Monetaria annulus (Linnaeus, 1758)
Synonyms[1]
Cypraea annulus Linnaeus, 1758 Cypraea annularis Perry, G., 1811 Cypraea annulata Donovan, E., 1820 Cypraea annulifera Conrad, T.A., 1866 Cypraea camelorum Rochebrune, A.-T. de, 1884 Monetaria harmandiana Rochebrune, A.-T. de, 1884 Cypraea calcarata Melvill, J.C., 1888 Cypraea obvelata calcarata Melvill, J.C., 1888 Cypraea tectoriata Sulliotti, G.R., 1924 Monetaria sosokoana Ladd, H.S., 1934 Monetaria annulus scutellum (f) Schilder, F.A. & M. Schilder, 1937 Monetaria dranga Iredale, T., 1939

Monetaria annulus, common name the ring cowrie or gold ringer, is a species of sea snail, a cowry, a marine gastropod mollusk in the family Cypraeidae, the cowries.^[1]

There is one subspecies : Monetaria annulus camelorum (Rochebr.)

Description

The shell size varies between 9 mm and 50 mm

Living Cypraea annulus

Cypraea annulus

Distribution

This species and its subspecies are distributed in the Red Sea, and in the seas along Aldabra, Chagos , the Comores, the East Coast of South Africa, Kenya, Madagascar, the Mascarene Basin, Mauritius, Mozambique, Réunion, the Seychelles, Somalia, South Mozambique and Tanzania and in the Pacific Ocean along Hawaii and the Galápagos

References

1. ^ ^{a b} Monetaria annulus (Linnaeus). WoRMS (2009). Monetaria annulus (Linnaeus). Accessed through the World Register of Marine Species at http://www.marinespecies.org/aphia.php?p=taxdetails&id=216875 on10 October 2010.

• Verdcourt, B. (1954). The cowries of the East African Coast (Kenya, Tanganyika, Zanzibar and Pemba). Journal of the East Africa Natural History Society 22(4) 96: 129-144, 17 pls.

External links

• Gastropods.com : Monetaria annulus; accessed : 24 November 2010