money cowrie

DrayB · Nov 17, 2015

hi all.
can anyone tell me why money cowries do this?
i never had any idea they did this and was a little freaked out as i had only just added to the DT :)

Daniel@R2R · Nov 18, 2015

Bump for help with this one.

DrayB · Nov 18, 2015

sorry, I've had a bit of a look on tinterweb, seems like thats their foot and how they get around. the protrusions may be feelers/sensors looking for munchy algae to....well.....munch on :)

thebluecatapilla · Nov 18, 2015

So pretty!

Vaughn17 · Nov 18, 2015

That is the snail's mantle. With the money cowry, its mantal is cryptic (looks sort of like algae) in order to camouflage it from predators. It (mantle) can cover the entire outer shell.

Clayalaleona · Nov 18, 2015

Basically what he said ^^^ used for camo.
I love these little guys SOOO much. I can get a frag COVERED in algae from anyone and overnight they'll help me out

NanaReefer · Nov 18, 2015

I've had my Cowrie for about a year. First time I saw it's shell covered with the uglys I freaked-lol.

Vaughn17 · Nov 18, 2015

Clayalaleona said:
Basically what he said ^^^ used for camo.
I love these little guys SOOO much. I can get a frag COVERED in algae from anyone and overnight they'll help me out

I'm a she. And I agree that the money cowry is a hair algae eating machine! Way better than turbos. They don't seem to bother corals, either, IME, although once, I was sold another species (unknown) that was supposed to be just an algae eater, too, but when it ran out of algae it ate a few of my LPS.

Clayalaleona · Nov 19, 2015

Vaughn17 said:
I'm a she. And I agree that the money cowry is a hair algae eating machine! Way better than turbos. They don't seem to bother corals, either, IME, although once, I was sold another species (unknown) that was supposed to be just an algae eater, too, but when it ran out of algae it ate a few of my LPS.

Probably a tiger cowrie. Money's are pretty much the only ones that are reef safe

Vaughn17 · Nov 19, 2015

Clayalaleona said:
Probably a tiger cowrie. Money's are pretty much the only ones that are reef safe

Not a tiger. It's shell was colored similar to a millet cowry (and not nearly as beautiful as a tiger's, and it had the coolest cryptic mantle, much more ornate than the money cowrie's), but there are about 500 species in the genus Cypraea, and a lot of them looked very similar, so I definitely could be wrong. Anyway, while it seemed to prefer algae, the mystery cowry was obviously an omnivore. Since I didn't want the it to munch any more of my corals, I donated the it to the local Petco, which has plenty of hair algae.