The “Pitted Frog Shell” is a medium-sized bursid ranging rather widely from Mediterranean Sea to the northeastern Atlantic to West Africa. Two living subspecies are recognised from both morphological and molecular data. The nominal subspecies ranges from Mediterranean Sea to the northeastern Atlantic and typically has smooth adult whorls with dark reddish-brown ‘flame-like’ patterns and diminutive intervarical sculpture such as striae and nodules. Although the sculpture is still somewhat variable in this subspecies, a key feature is that fine pustules on and between spiral striae are consistently absent. Some of the best known localities for the nominal subspecies include Italy, Portugal, Azores, Canary Islands, among others. The other subspecies, T. s. coriacea (Reeve, 1844), is restricted to West Africa between Senegal and Angola; it typically has heavier intervarical sculpture in adults including strongly raised nodules and spiral striae, as well as characteristic pustules on and between the spiral striae. The nominal subspecies is larger with a typical shell length of around 50 mm and extremely large specimens can reach 95 mm; T. s. crocea is typically about 40 mm in shell length though very large specimens can reach 65 mm.
A carnivorous and predatory gastropod, it inhabits rocky shores of shallow to moderate depths between -10~100 m and feeds on other invertebrate animals such as sea stars and sea urchins. An uncommon species, vast majority of specimens are crabbed or collected as empty shells. live-collected specimens are rare and hard to come-by, especially large-sized ones with mature lip. Previously this species has been placed in Bursa or Bufonaria, but now it is housed in the monotypic genus Talisman. – Adaptes from Chong Chen’s post

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