---
title: Cowries (Cypraeidae)
scientific_name: Cypraeidae
common_name: Cowries
rank: Family
published: 2026-08-11T10:20:23.730Z
updated: 2026-08-11T11:00:06.415Z
tags: Cowries, Cypraeidae, Red Sea, Marine Life, Diving
url: https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/invertebrate/molluscs/cowries
---

# Cowries (*Cypraeidae*)

## Quick facts

- **Rank:** Family
- **Scientific name:** Cypraeidae
- **Body shape:** Invertebrate - Not a fish - coral, mollusc, crustacean, echinoderm and other invertebrate groups.
- **Species listed here:** 6

## How to recognise this group

- glossy egg-shaped shell with no visible spire
- long narrow toothed opening running the full length of the underside
- living animal wraps the shell in a fleshy mantle, often covered in papillae
- mantle withdraws in seconds when a light hits it

Cowries are the shells everyone knows by touch: glossy, egg-shaped, with the spire buried under later growth and a long toothed slit running the length of the underside. The polish is not wear. The living animal wraps two flaps of mantle up over the outside of the shell and lays down fresh material from the outer surface, so the shell is being repaired and repainted from the outside for as long as the snail lives.

That mantle is what divers miss. A cowrie out at night is covered in fleshy tissue studded with papillae, often nothing like the shell underneath in color, and it withdraws in seconds under a torch beam - which is why most people only ever see the bare shell and assume the animal is drab.

They were money for longer than coins have existed. The shells of two small species circulated as currency across Africa and Asia for centuries, which is where their names come from, and they remain the most collected marine shells in the world. The pressure that puts on the larger species is the reason a living cowrie is worth leaving on the reef.


## Species (6)

- [Caurica Cowrie (Erronea caurica)](https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/invertebrate/molluscs/cowries/caurica-cowrie)
- [Gray's Cowrie (Mauritia grayana)](https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/invertebrate/molluscs/cowries/grays-cowrie)
- [Isabelle Cowrie (Luria isabella)](https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/invertebrate/molluscs/cowries/isabelle-cowrie)
- [Milk Spot Cowrie (Lyncina vitellus)](https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/invertebrate/molluscs/cowries/milk-spot-cowrie)
- [Money Cowrie (Monetaria moneta)](https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/invertebrate/molluscs/cowries/money-cowrie)
- [Ring Cowrie (Monetaria annulus)](https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/invertebrate/molluscs/cowries/ring-cowrie)

---

*Source: [Red Sea Creatures](https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/invertebrate/molluscs/cowries)*
*Updated: August 11, 2026*