Cool Sea Snail 🐌 😎

Welcome to another volume of weird animals!

Today we have what is probably the coolest sea snail ever! As always, let's begin with some photos:

source

source

Pretty badass if you ask me!

Commonly known as The Venus comb murex, these spiny fuckers grow to be quite large, 10 and 15 cm in length.

Scientifically described as Murex pecte, it's a predatory species native to Indo-Pacific waters, occurring in the coasts of Australia, Asia and Africa.

According to Wikipedia, individuals can have over 100 of these spines, which mainly serve as a defense mechanism:

The shell has over one hundred spines, which provide protection from predation, and prevent the snail from sinking in the soft mud. Like many other Murex snails, it feeds on other mollusks.

Dunno if that number is true, seems an overstretch to me after checking some photos online. Still...Lot's of spines!

source

Apparently the spines are fragile, so finding a "perfect" specimen is not that easy.

And here's a video of a living specimen in action:

If you fancy to own there are a few places selling them, like this one where they go for about 25$ a pop. Imo not a bad price for such a beautiful and odd piece. Maybe I'll order one for myself :)

Anyways, I hope you enjoyed discovering yet another bizarre creature with me. As always, Wikipedia is a great place to start if you want to learn more about it!

See you soon with more animal oddities. Stay tuned 🐌