A very large tonnoidean snail, the “Atlantic Triton’s Trumpet” is one of the most well-known Atlantic molluscs. It has a very wide distribution ranging from the Mediterranean Sea to the Caribbean Sea to Brazil, owing to a very long planktrophic larval dispersal stage over many months leading to a large veliger larvae with a shell length of about 5 mm.

A common carnivorous and predatory gastropod, it actively seeks out and hunts various echinoderms for food, especially sea stars and holothurians. Inhabiting sand and rubble bottoms, it is typically found in shallow water down to about -30 m deep but in exceptional circumstances live individuals have been spotted at over 100 m deep.

The shell is often used for decoration, and the meat is edible. Although generally instantly recognisable, it is quite variable in shell colouration and shell height to width ratio; golden or orange shells are less frequent compared to red ones.

Specimens from the Mediterranean have been known under the form name f. seguenzae Aradas & Benoit 1874, and supposedly have narrower spires, but given the general variability in shell form of this species it is treated as a junior synonym. It is a protected species in the Mediterranean Sea and Europe in general under both the Bern Convention and the Barcelona Convention. Typical shell length around 250 mm, extremely large specimens are known to exceed 380 mm.

On some occasions it has been confused with its Pacific sister species Charonia tritonis (Linnaeus, 1758), but they are easily distinguishable based on the following features:

1) whorls of C. tritonis are much less angulated than C. variegata;
2) the ‘crecent’ patterns are more clearly-defined and often bluish in C. tritonis, but are more diffused and never carry bluish tones in C. variegata;
3) the raised, light-coloured ‘teeth’ in the inner lip is broader than the dark-coloured background in C. tritonis but vice-versa in C. variegata;
4) the outer lip is more flared in adults of C. tritonis compared to C. variegata;
5) teeth on the outer lip extends much longer into the aperture in C. tritonis than C. variegata.

Following a recent study on the molecular phylogeny of Tonnoidea, Charoniidae has been separated from Ranellidae as its own family containing only the genus Charonia. – adapted from Chong Chen’s post

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