About Cinctura hunteria (Perry, 1811)
The shell of the marine gastropod Cinctura hunteria has four to seven primary spiral bands. This species is distributed across the Caribbean Sea, the Gulf of Mexico, and the Western Atlantic. Cinctura hunteria is a predatory species whose diet includes polychaetes, bivalves, sea squirts, other snails, with onuphid worms making up a large percentage of its food intake. When hunting larger bivalve prey, Cinctura hunteria uses the apertural lip of its own shell to wedge bivalve shells open. This action can break the edge of the predator's shell, so Cinctura hunteria shells commonly have repair scars from this damage. When hunting smaller bivalves, Cinctura hunteria envelopes the bivalve shell, forces the prey's operculum open, then inserts its proboscis to feed. Cinctura hunteria itself is preyed on by larger fasciolariids: Fasciolaria tulipa and Triplofusus giganteus, as well as by the whitespotted eagle ray Aetobatus narinari.
