Bolinus brandaris

Common card · No. 492460

Bolinus brandaris (originally called Murex brandaris by Linnaeus; synonym Haustellum brandaris), and commonly known as the purple dye murex or the spiny dye-murex, is a species of medium-sized predatory sea snail, an edible marine gastropod mollusc in the family Muricidae, the murex snails or the rock snails. This species is also known in the fossil record from the Pliocene (age range: from 3.6 to 2.588 million years ago). Fossil shells of this species have been found in Cyprus, Spain and Italy. It was used by the Phoenicians in ancient times to extract imperial Tyrian purple dye.

Read on Wikipedia · Image Holger Krisp, CC BY 3.0