[A102042] Monetaria moneta (Linnaeus, 1758)

This is a shell of Monetaria moneta (Linnaeus, 1758) found on the beach of Yalong Bay, Hainan, China. Monetaria moneta, common name the “money cowry”, is a species of small sea snail, a marine gastropod mollusk in the family Cypraeidae, the cowries. This species is called “money cowry” because the shells were historically widely used in many Pacific and Indian Ocean countries as shell money before coinage was in common usage.