Cryptocypraea dillwyni (Schilder, 1922)
Dillwyn's cowry, 11-17mm

Cryptocypraea dillwyni resembles the chick pea cowries in shape, but its ends do not stick out quite as much. The shell ranges from faintly yellow to light yellow-orange with white spots. Living animals are very rare and found exclusively at night in seaward reef surge channel caves, where they seem to prefer being well up off the surge channel floor at the end of the channel near the steep seaward slope at depths ranging from about 7-16m. The mantle has long papillae that resemble those of the much more common Nucleolaria nucleus, so it is often hard to tell which you are seeing until the mantle retracts. Empty shells are sometimes found in the bottoms of surge channels. The cowry was named for a 19th century British conchologist named Dillwyn. Specimens are known from Polynesia (excluding Hawaii) up into Micronesia.

Created 1 April 2008
Updated 9 October 2009

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