The “Triton’s Trumpet” is a giant ranellid commonly found throughout the Indo-West Pacific region including Red Sea and Hawaii, and is perhaps one of the best known mollusc species of all.

It is a predatory gastropod well-known for feeding on the crown-of-thorns starfish Acanthaster planci, but it actually feeds on a wide variety of echinoderms. A shallow water dweller usually found in depths less than -80m, it inhabits rocky to sandy bottoms, often of coral reefs.

The shell is often used as a decorative object, and the meat is edible. In many cultures it was traditionally made into a horn, for example in Japan it was once used as war horn in the Sengoku period and in Hawaii it is the most common type of ‘pu’ (conch horns), blowing of which has cultural and spiritual significance and often done in ceremonial occasions.

Many consider it to be overfished and it is listed as a protected species in some countries such as Philippines and Australia. In 1994 Australia proposed to include it on CITES Appendix II, but the proposal was withdrawn later due to lack of sufficient support data.

Typical shell length is around 380mm, giants may sometimes exceed even 500mm; the protoconch is always missing in adult specimens. The specimen shown has clearly defined pairs of dentitions inside the the outer lip, such specimens seem to be less common. – Adapted from Chong Chen’s post