Spider conch

Lambis lambis

''Lambis lambis'', common name the spider conch, is a species of large sea snail, a marine gastropod mollusk in the family Strombidae, the true conchs.
Arthritic Spider Conch The Arthritic Spider Conch - Lambis lambis is a species of large sea snail, a marine gastropod mollusk in the family Strombidae, the true conchs.

This is the underside of the conch, which I turned over to take this picture to show some delicate markings on the shell.

The top side of this Conch can be seen here :

https://www.jungledragon.com/image/49523/arthritic_spider_conch.html
 Arthritic Spider Conch,Conch,Geotagged,Lambis lambis,Maldives,Sea Shell,Spider Conch,Summer

Appearance

The maximum shell length for this species is up to 29 cm, and average length stands for 18 cm.
''Lambis lambis'' has a very large, robust and heavy shell. One of its most striking characteristics is its flared outer lip, ornamented by six hollow marginal digitations. These digitations present subtle differences in shape between genders in this species, as the three anteriormost digitations are short and posteriorly bent in male individuals, and longer and dorsally recurved in females. The color of the shell is highly variable, being white or cream externally and often presenting brown, purplish or bluish black patches. The interior is glazed and may be pink, orange or purple.
Arthritic Spider Conch This is the top side of the Arthritic Spider Conch, which is what one normally sees.  Their shells usually has colouration that allows them to camouflage well with their surrounding.

The underside of this animal can be seen here :

https://www.jungledragon.com/image/49522/arthritic_spider_conch.html
 Arthritic Spider Conch,Conch,Geotagged,Lambis lambis,Maldives,Sea Shell,Spider Conch,Summer

Distribution

This species is widespread in the Indo-West Pacific, including Aldabra, Kenya, Madagascar, Mauritius, Mozambique, the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea, Seychelles, Tanzania, Micronesia, eastern Melanesia, Taiwan, southern Japan and northern Australia.
Spider conch - Lambis lambis Hamata. Egypt. Egypt,Fall,Geotagged,Lambis lambis,Spider conch

Habitat

This sea snail lives in mangrove areas, as well as reef flats and coral-rubble bottoms in shallow water from low tide levels to depths of 5m. It is usually found in association with red algae.

Food

''Lambis lambis'' is known to be herbivorous, feeding on fine red algae.

References:

Some text fragments are auto parsed from Wikipedia.

Taxonomy
KingdomAnimalia
DivisionMollusca
ClassGastropoda
OrderLittorinimorpha
FamilyStrombidae
GenusLambis
SpeciesL. lambis
Photographed in
Egypt
Maldives