About Calpurnus verrucosus (Linnaeus, 1758)
The shells of Calpurnus verrucosus grow to between 10 and 40 millimetres (0.39 to 1.57 inches) in length. This species of cowry has a pure white, smooth, ovate shell, with a flat and wide base. The anterior and posterior ends of the shell have a faint purple tint, and a depressed pustule is surrounded by a yellow circle at its edge; this feature gives the species its Latin name verrucosus. The mantle of living Calpurnus verrucosus is white and entirely covered in small brown spots. The foot of the species is also white with dark dots, and can extend widely around the base of the shell. This species is primarily distributed across the tropical regions of South East Africa and the Western Pacific Ocean, found in waters off Madagascar, the Mascarene Islands, the Red Sea, Indonesia, Thailand, and the Philippines. Living Calpurnus verrucosus can most commonly be found during the daytime under soft corals, sponges, and rocks, in shallow to deep waters at depths between 20 and 50 meters. They feed primarily on the polyps of leather corals from the genera Sacrophyton and Lobophytum, in the family Alcyoniidae. At night, they spread their mantles over the top of soft corals to graze on the coral polyps.
