''Charonia lampas'', common name the pink lady, is a

species A species () is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate sexes or mating types can produce fertile offspring, typically by sexual reproduction. It is the basic unit of Taxonomy (biology), ...

predatory Predation is a biological interaction in which one organism, the predator, kills and eats another organism, its prey. It is one of a family of common feeding behaviours that includes parasitism and micropredation (which usually do not kill ...

sea snail Sea snails are slow-moving marine (ocean), marine gastropod Mollusca, molluscs, usually with visible external shells, such as whelk or abalone. They share the Taxonomic classification, taxonomic class Gastropoda with slugs, which are distinguishe ...

, a marine

gastropod Gastropods (), commonly known as slugs and snails, belong to a large Taxonomy (biology), taxonomic class of invertebrates within the phylum Mollusca called Gastropoda (). This class comprises snails and slugs from saltwater, freshwater, and fro ...

mollusk Mollusca is a phylum of protostomic invertebrate animals, whose members are known as molluscs or mollusks (). Around 76,000 extant species of molluscs are recognized, making it the second-largest animal phylum after Arthropoda. The ...

in the

family Family (from ) is a Social group, group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or Affinity (law), affinity (by marriage or other relationship). It forms the basis for social order. Ideally, families offer predictabili ...

Charoniidae.

Distribution

This marine species has a wide distribution: the North Sea, the North Atlantic Ocean (Azores, Madeira, the Canaries, Cape Verdes), the Atlantic Ocean (off the African coasts), the Mediterranean Sea, and the Indian Ocean (off Madagascar, the East coast of South Africa).

Description

The maximum recorded

shell Shell may refer to: Architecture and design * Shell (structure), a thin structure ** Concrete shell, a thin shell of concrete, usually with no interior columns or exterior buttresses Science Biology * Seashell, a hard outer layer of a marine ani ...

length is 390 mm.Welch J. J. (2010). "The "Island Rule" and Deep-Sea Gastropods: Re-Examining the Evidence". '' PLoS ONE'' 5(1): e8776. . The large shell measures up to 400 mm on mainland locations, to 200 mm off island and seamount sites. The

protoconch A protoconch (meaning first or earliest or original shell) is an embryonic or larval shell which occurs in some classes of molluscs, e.g., the initial chamber of an ammonite or the larval shell of a gastropod. In older texts it is also called " ...

is multispiral, normally eroded except on very juvenile specimens. The

teleoconch The gastropod shell is part of the body of many gastropods, including snails, a kind of mollusc. The shell is an exoskeleton, which protects from predators, mechanical damage, and dehydration, but also serves for muscle attachment and calcium ...

consists of 8–9 whorls with a moderately high, conical spire and convex whorls, the last one ample and making up slightly more than two-thirds of the total height. The

spire A spire is a tall, slender, pointed structure on top of a roof of a building or tower, especially at the summit of church steeples. A spire may have a square, circular, or polygonal plan, with a roughly conical or pyramidal shape. Spire ...

whorl A whorl ( or ) is an individual circle, oval, volution or equivalent in a whorled pattern, which consists of a spiral or multiple concentric objects (including circles, ovals and arcs). In nature File:Photograph and axial plane floral diagra ...

s are vaguely shouldered, with very flat spiral cords separated by poorly defined, rather narrow interspaces, the shoulder covered by a much broader and flatter cord and commonly, but not always, bearing a spiral series of knobs, paralleled to the abapical side by lesser flat cords with or without spiral rows of knobs. The large

aperture In optics, the aperture of an optical system (including a system consisting of a single lens) is the hole or opening that primarily limits light propagated through the system. More specifically, the entrance pupil as the front side image o ...

is oval in shape, with an elaborate

peristome Peristome (from the Greek language, Greek ''peri'', meaning 'around' or 'about', and ''stoma'', 'mouth') is an anatomical feature that surrounds an opening to an organ or structure. Some plants, fungi, and shelled gastropods have peristomes. In mo ...

. The outer

lip The lips are a horizontal pair of soft appendages attached to the jaws and are the most visible part of the mouth of many animals, including humans. Mammal lips are soft, movable and serve to facilitate the ingestion of food (e.g. sucklin ...

is flaring, thickened at a short distance from the edge and with internal denticles. The inner part of the peristome shows an appressed parietal callus continued into a foliated columellar callus, which has a raised edge overhanging the

siphonal canal The siphonal canal is an anatomical feature of the shells of certain groups of sea snails within the clade Neogastropoda. Some sea marine gastropods have a soft tubular anterior extension of the mantle called a siphon through which water i ...

on large specimens, and bears indistinct ridges towards the edge. The colour pattern is very characteristic, with articulated spiral bands of light patches on the knobs and dark brown in the interspaces, alternating with medium brown uniform bands. The peristome is white with dark brown denticles on the outer lip and a brownish to reddish hue on the edge of columellar callus.

Habitat

Minimum recorded depth is 8 m. Maximum recorded depth is 50 m.

Uses

* During the

Neolithic The Neolithic or New Stone Age (from Ancient Greek, Greek 'new' and 'stone') is an archaeological period, the final division of the Stone Age in Mesopotamia, Asia, Europe and Africa (c. 10,000 BCE to c. 2,000 BCE). It saw the Neolithic Revo ...

period ''Charonia lampas'' shells were used in

necklace A necklace is an article of jewellery that is worn around the neck. Necklaces may have been one of the earliest types of adornment worn by humans. They often serve ceremonial, religious, magical, or funerary purposes and are also used as sy ...

s. * There is evidence of the shell being used as a wind music instrument.

Synonyms

References

Linnaeus, C. (1758). Systema Naturae per regna tria naturae, secundum classes, ordines, genera, species, cum characteribus, differentiis, synonymis, locis. Editio decima, reformata. Laurentius Salvius: Holmiae. ii, 824 pp.
{{Taxonbar, from=Q1315928 Charoniidae Taxa named by Carl Linnaeus Gastropods described in 1758 Molluscs of the Atlantic Ocean Molluscs of the Indian Ocean Molluscs of the Mediterranean Sea Molluscs of the Azores Molluscs of the Canary Islands Gastropods of Cape Verde Invertebrates of the North Sea Molluscs of Madagascar Invertebrates of South Africa