Trivia monacha

Taxobox
name = "Trivia monacha"

---

image_caption = "Trivia monacha" shells showing variability of size and colour. These shells have sand grains stuck in the aperture and were collected in beach drift near Aberffraw, Anglesey.
regnum = Animalia
phylum = Mollusca
classis = Gastropoda
ordo = Sorbeoconcha
familia = Triviidae
genus = "Trivia"
subgenus = "Trivia"
species = "T. monacha"
binomial = "Trivia monacha"
binomial_authority = (da Costa, 1778)

"Trivia monacha", also known as the European cowrie or spotted cowrie, is is a species of small sea snail, a marine gastropod mollusc in the family Triviidae, the trivias.

The name "Trivia" means "common" and the word "monacha" means "solitary".

Distribution

This species occurs from the Mediterranean Sea to the Orkney islands north of Scotland.

Habitat

This species usually lives below low tide, in other words is sublittoral, but the empty shells of this species are often washed up onto beaches.

hell description

The shell of this species is glossy and lemon-shaped, with 20-30 transverse ridges. The upper part of the shell is a reddish-brown with three characteristic darker spots in mature individuals. Juvenile shells are all white.

The shell length is up to a maximum of about 15 mm.

Life habits

This snail feeds on sea squirts and compound ascidians.

Note on differentiating the species

"Trivia monacha" is sometimes confused with "Trivia arctica". In fact they were considered to be two forms of the same species until 1925, when A. J. Peile published a paper in the "Proceedings of the Malacological Society" differentiating the two.

It is now known that the larvae of the two species are readily distinguishable.

The Linnaean name "Trivia europea", now lapsed, referred to the supposed single species. Linnaeus himself mentioned two kinds: "Cypraea europea" and "Cypraea anglica", but these terms were intended as a geographical distinction and are not accepted as species names today.

References

* [http://www.arkive.org/species/ARK/invertebrates_marine/Trivia_monacha/]
* [http://www.marlin.ac.uk/species/Triviamonacha.htm]
* [http://sabella.mba.ac.uk/782/01/The_British_species_of_trivia_T_arctica_and_T._monacha.pdf]