Ring cowrie

Care at a glance

The ring cowrie is a small cowrie with a glossy, cream-white shell and a golden-yellow ring on its back, which is where its name comes from. When it is active it draws its mottled mantle up over the shell, and that is what keeps the shell so smooth. Together with the money cowrie, its shell served as currency for centuries, in West Africa among other places.

At night it grazes algal film and hair algae off the rock, and it leaves corals alone. Because it stays small, it does not knock frags over the way a tiger cowrie does. By day it hides under rocks, so it can take days before you spot it. Once the algae run out, offer a piece of nori, and keep copper out of the tank: like every snail, it cannot tolerate it.

Good to know

• Active at night

Related species

• Flame scallopCtenoides scaber
• Tiger cowrieCypraea tigris
• Derasa clamTridacna derasa
• Sea hareDolabella auricularia
• Sea applePseudocolochirus violaceus
• Squamosa clam (scaly clam)Tridacna squamosa