---
title: Lynx Cowrie (Lyncina lynx)
scientific_name: Lyncina lynx
common_name: Lynx Cowrie
taxon: Cowries
published: 2026-08-29T13:34:47.473Z
updated: 2026-08-29T14:23:21.156Z
tags: Lynx Cowrie, Lyncina lynx, Cowries, Red Sea, Marine Life, Diving
url: https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/invertebrate/molluscs/cowries/lynx-cowrie
---

# Lynx Cowrie (*Lyncina lynx*)

## Quick facts

- **Group:** Cowries (*Cypraeidae*)
- **Size:** up to 8.5 cm
- **Diet:** Omnivore
- **Activity:** Nocturnal
- **Rarity:** Uncommon
- **Habitat:** Reef slopes and rubble, under ledges by day
- **Reproduction:** Egg layer, Gonochoric

## How to recognise it

- white to tan shell scattered with dark brown spots of uneven size
- mantle translucent, so the shell's spots show through it
- mantle surface covered in fine branching papillae
- up to eight and a half centimeters

Most cowries hide their shell under an opaque mantle. This one does not, and the effect is worth catching.

The living animal wraps its shell in two flaps of mantle that fold up from either side and meet along the back. On this species those flaps are translucent, and covered in fine branching papillae that stand up off the surface like a low hedge. Light goes through them, so the brown spots of the shell underneath show as blurred shapes seen through frosted glass, with the papillae standing over the top. A cowrie in that state does not look like a shell at all; it looks like a piece of the reef that has grown a fur.

That mantle is also the shell's maker. It lays down new material from the outside as the animal grows, which is why a live cowrie is polished and a dead one on the sand goes chalky and dull.

Pull the mantle away and the shell is white to tan with dark brown spots of unequal size, and it is those spots the name refers to: lynx, for a spotted cat.

Up to eight and a half centimeters (3.3 in), out at night on reef slopes and rubble, wedged under a ledge through the day. Linnaeus named it in 1758.

## Also known as

- **English:** Lynx Cowry, bobcat cowrie, lynx cowrie
- **Hebrew:** פי-כושי מצויץ
- **Italian:** Ciprea lince
- **German:** Lynxkauri
- **Czech:** zavinutec rysí
- **Japanese:** ヒメホシダカラ
- **Chinese:** 山貓寶螺
- **Russian:** Ципрея-рысь
- **AF:** Katkaurie

## Scientific synonyms

- *Cypraea (Luponia) lynx* Linnaeus, 1758
- *Cypraea (Luponia) lynx var. globosa* Dautzenberg, 1903
- *Cypraea (Lyncina) lynx* (Linnaeus, 1758)
- *Cypraea (Lyncina) lynx var. javana* Coen, 1949
- *Cypraea (Lyncina) lynx var. nigroguttata* Coen, 1949
- *Cypraea caledonica* Crosse, 1869
- *Cypraea cruentata* Röding, 1798
- *Cypraea ferruginea* Fischer von Waldheim, 1807
- *Cypraea leucostoma* Gmelin, 1791
- *Cypraea lynx* Linnaeus, 1758
- *Cypraea lynx var. incrassata* Dautzenberg, 1929
- *Cypraea lynx var. michaelis* Melvill, 1905
- *Cypraea lynx var. williamsi* Melvill, 1888
- *Cypraea punctulata* Gmelin, 1791
- *Cypraea squalina* Gmelin, 1791
- *Cypraea subflava* Gmelin, 1791
- *Cypraea vanelli* Linnaeus, 1758
- *Lyncina lynx pacifica* W. R. Steadman & Cotton, 1943

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*Source: [Red Sea Creatures](https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/invertebrate/molluscs/cowries/lynx-cowrie)*
*Updated: August 29, 2026*