Melo aethiopicus (Crowned baler)

With an inflated shell ornamented by regular, short, open shoulder spines, the “Crowned Baler” is a very large volutid native to the southwestern Pacific, ranging between Malaysia to Papua New Guinea with most specimens originating from Indonesia.

The most striking character that makes it stand out among all Melo species is the extensive flaring of the the outer lip to cover the spire in adults, although the extent of this vary considerably among individuals and only in some gerontic specimens it is so extreme that from the aperture view the lip completely conceals the spire. Another remarkable feature is that the aperture often carries strong colouration ranging from yellow to very dark orange, though again the colouration vary among specimens; shells with strong, dark aperture colour are known informally as “sunrise baler” and are highly sought after.

The shell dorsum is typically a rather dark reddish brown and in young specimens alternating broad spiral bands of lighter and darker brown are often evident. A carnivorous and predatory gastropod feeding on other invertebrate animals, it inhabits soft bottoms of shallow waters from low intertidal down to about 50 m deep.

Though a locally common species, finding specimens with desirable features such as strongly flared lip or “sunrise” aperture is no easy task. Typical shell length around 200 mm, extremely large specimens may reach 400 mm.

It is often confused with Melo broderipii (Gray, 1833), a congener best known from the Philippines, but the two can be distinguished by the following features: 1) M. broderipii typically carry dark brown axial patterns and speckles, especially when young, which is completely lacking in M. aethiopicus; 2) M. broderipii has a much more inflated shell compared to M. aethiopicus of a similar size; 3) The dorsum colour of M. broderipii is much lighter than that of M. aethiopicus; and 4) M. broderipii never develops the strongly flared lip often seen in mature shells of M. aethiopicus.

(adapted from Chong Chen’s facebook post)