Green Snail

• Its calcareous operculum — thick, white and domed — is sold as an ornament and known as a cat's eye.
• An adult can weigh two kilos, almost all of it shell.
• It is one of the largest marine snails in the world, with a shell of up to 20 cm and a weight of more than two kilos.
• Its nacre is exceptionally thick and of exceptional quality, and that has been its problem: it has been exploited intensively for more than a century for buttons, marquetry and inlays, to the point of exhausting populations across wide areas of the Indo-Pacific.
• Its operculum is solid and calcareous, a heavy, hemispherical piece known as the cat's eye or eye of Saint Lucia, used in jewellery and as an amulet.
• It has been deliberately introduced into French Polynesia and other islands to create fisheries, with mixed results.
• It grows slowly and matures late, which means that depleted populations take decades to recover.
• It is protected or regulated in several Indo-Pacific countries.

Skeleton type

Invertebrate - external calcareous shell (mollusc)

Habitat & environment

Coral reefs and shallow rocky bottoms of the Indo-Pacific

Sources consulted: Yamaguchi, trabajos sobre Turbo marmoratus; FAO; Poutiers, FAO Species Identification Guide