WHATSTHATFISH
Sea slugs & snails

Beautifully-banded Moon Snail

Tanea undulata

Also known as: Moon Shell, Moon Snail, Necklace Shell, Naticid Snail, Painted Moon Snail, Painted Sand Snail, Predatory Sea Snail, Tanea euzona

Adult
@perigor2000 · Phuket, Thailand · May 20101 / 1
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Overview

Found over intertidal, to deeper sandy areas, in off-shore reefs. Often found washed up on beaches. They produce a collar-shaped egg-mass.
They feed on bivalves.

These are predatory sea snails that envelope their prey and then bore a hole through the shell using its radula, injecting an acid secretion. Once the shell is bored open, the proboscis is used to consume the flesh of the prey.
In the breeding season, the female moon snail lays a rather stiff egg mass which includes sand and mucus. These objects wash up on sandy beaches fairly often, and are known by the common name "sand collars" because of their resemblance to an old-fashioned removable shirt collar or false-collar.

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How to identify

COLOURS

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Habitat & where to find it

  • Range · Indo-West Pacific
  • Country only · 1
LIVES IN

Found over intertidal, to deeper sandy areas, in off-shore reefs.

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Adult photos 1

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Discussion

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    ALL STAGES
    FOR THE MARINE-BIOLOGY CURIOUS

    Deep dive

    Taxonomy

    1. kingdomAnimalia
    2. phylumMollusca
    3. classGastropoda
    4. orderLittorinimorpha
    5. familyNaticidae
    6. genusTanea
    7. speciesTanea undulata (Röding, 1798)

    SourcesWoRMS

    06

    More in the family

    Littorinimorpha