Strombus shells have a flaring outer lip with a notch near the anterior end called the stromboid notch through which the animal can protrude one of its stalked eyes. This is called an alated outer lip or alation.Ĭonches lay eggs in long strands the eggs are contained in twisted, gelatinous tubes. True conches grow a flared lip on their shells only upon reaching sexual maturity. The true conch has a foot ending in a pointed, sickle-shaped, operculum, which can be dug into the substrate as part of an unusual "leaping" locomotion. This notch is where one of the two eye stalks protrudes from the shell. The shell has a long and narrow aperture, and a short siphonal canal, with another indentation near the anterior end called a stromboid notch. True conches have long eye stalks, with colorful ring-marked eyes at the tips. Again, as is normally the case in many gastropods, this spiral shell growth is usually right-handed, but on very rare occasions it can be left-handed. Like almost all shelled gastropods, conches have spirally constructed shells.
Live animal of the Florida fighting conch Strombus alatus: Note the extensible snout in the foreground, and the two stalked eyes behind it. They eat algae and have a claw-shaped operculum. Many species of true conchs live on sandy bottoms among beds of sea grass in tropical waters. Of the living species, most are in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. Fossils of species within this genus have been found all over the world in sediments from Cretaceous to Quaternary (age range: 140.2 million years ago to recent). In the geological past, a much larger number of species of Strombus existed. Worldwide, several of the larger species are economically important as food sources these include the endangered queen conch, which very rarely also produces a pink, gem-quality pearl. These new genera are, however, not yet found in most textbooks and collector's guides. However, since 2006, many species have been assigned to discrete genera. Six species live in the greater Caribbean region, including the queen conch, Strombus gigas (now usually known as Eustrombus gigas or Lobatus gigas), and the West Indian fighting conch, Strombus pugilis. Around 50 living species were recognized, which vary in size from fairly small to very large.
The genus Strombus was named by Swedish Naturalist Carl Linnaeus in 1758. Strombus is a genus of medium to large sea snails, marine gastropod molluscs in the family Strombidae, which comprises the true conchs and their immediate relatives.
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