Cowrie

Uncommon card · No. 87057

Cowrie or cowry (pl. cowries) is the common name for a group of small to large sea snails in the family Cypraeidae. Cowrie shells have held cultural, economic, and ornamental significance in various cultures. The cowrie was the shell most widely used worldwide as shell money. It is most abundant in the Indian Ocean and was collected near the Maldive Islands, Sri Lanka and the Indian Malabar coast, Borneo and other East Indian islands, Maluku in the Pacific, Papua New Guinea, and various parts of the African coast from Ras Hafun, in Somalia, to Mozambique. Cowrie shell money was important in the trade networks of Africa, South Asia, and East Asia. In the United States and Mexico, cowrie species inhabit the waters off Central California to Baja California (the chestnut cowrie is the only cowrie species native to the eastern Pacific Ocean off the coast of the United States; further south, off the coast of Mexico, Central America and Peru, little deer cowrie habitat can be found; and further...

Read on Wikipedia · Image NOAA (Photo Collection of Dr. James P. McVey, NOAA Sea Grant Program), Public domain