Snail ID

[Grimli]

I had a couple of these snails show up a couple months ago at the size of maybe half of a grain of rice. Now there are at least a dozen, ranging from 1/8” to 1” in size. I assume they slipped past me on a coral frag I got from sbb that was absolutely covered in hitchhikers.

 

[kichimark]

Looks like a strombus snail or known as a columbellid from what I know. I use to have those in my old tank before I sold them. Great part of the cleaning crew. Miss them.

 

[tbrown]

The snout looks mottled so I'm leaning towards a whelk. They can be predatory. Question: do they go under the sand or stay more on the rocks?

 

[Grimli]

The snout looks mottled so I'm leaning towards a whelk. They can be predatory. Question: do they go under the sand or stay more on the rocks?

They stay above the sand bed and particularly like to hang out on my macro algae. I can’t tell if they’re eating it or not though.

 

[ISpeakForTheSeas]

I had a couple of these snails show up a couple months ago at the size of maybe half of a grain of rice. Now there are at least a dozen, ranging from 1/8” to 1” in size. I assume they slipped past me on a coral frag I got from sbb that was absolutely covered in hitchhikers.

Euplica scripta - it technically is a kind of whelk, just one of the few good ones:

Yeah, this is probably the Dotted/Lettered Dove Snail, Euplica scripta - it's a keeper if so:

Look up Euplica scripta (it has a lot of color variations, so look at a bunch of different images to compare with) and see if that seems to be a match.

Interesting, and I stand corrected here - Euplica scripta is apparently primarily a sea grass-epiphytic algae-eater;* so it feeds primarily on algae that grows on sea grass; interestingly, this makes them (and a few other common Columbellids) quite different dietarily than the vast majority of their relatives.**

Cool!

*Source:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1470160X21002727**Source:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9636871/

 

[Grimli]

I had a couple of these snails show up a couple months ago at the size of maybe half of a grain of rice. Now there are at least a dozen, ranging from 1/8” to 1” in size. I assume they slipped past me on a coral frag I got from sbb that was absolutely covered in hitchhikers.

Euplica scripta - it technically is a kind of whelk, just one of the few good ones:

Yeah, this is probably the Dotted/Lettered Dove Snail, Euplica scripta - it's a keeper if so:

Look up Euplica scripta (it has a lot of color variations, so look at a bunch of different images to compare with) and see if that seems to be a match.

Interesting, and I stand corrected here - Euplica scripta is apparently primarily a sea grass-epiphytic algae-eater;* so it feeds primarily on algae that grows on sea grass; interestingly, this makes them (and a few other common Columbellids) quite different dietarily than the vast majority of their relatives.**

Cool!

*Source:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1470160X21002727**Source:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9636871/

That’s a relief!