Seashell specimen: Strawberry Cowrie - Erosaria helvola

  (2 pieces lot)
 

Size of the Seashell: about 28x20x13 mm (1.1x0.8x0.5 inch).

Weight of the Seashell: about 5 gram

It is an ideal learning aid for students and kids and also a very good collectible item for every body.

The pictures in the listing are just for reference as we are selling multiple pieces with the same pictures.

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Strawberry Cowrie - Erosaria helvola

Class:Gastropoda Subclass:Prosobranchia Order:Sorbeoconcha

Superfamily: Cypraeoidea Family: Cypraeidae Genus: Erosaria Species: E. helvola

These very common small shells reach on average 15–23 millimetres (0.59–0.91 in) of length, with a maximum size of 36 millimetres (1.4 in) and a minimum size of 8 millimetres (0.31 in). The basic color of the shell is orange-brown or beige, with many white dots on the top of the dorsum. The underside is orange-brown. In the living cowries the mantle is trasparent, with short white papillae.

Erosaria helvola is a common species occupies a wide variety of habitats. The largest numbers of specimens are seen under rocks on the intertidal reef, or in shallow lagoon reef and pinnacle habitats, but they can also be found quite easily on the seaward reef. They also commonly live among Halimeda algae plants on sandy lagoon reefs. Specimens live from 0 to at least 20 meters and probably deeper. The shells vary somewhat across this species' wide Indo-Pacific range and Erosaria helvola has been broken up into a number of geographic subspecies. The specimen below is crawling across some purple sponge on the undersurface of a rock.