Atlantic Fig Snail

Shell thin, with low spire and shape of fig or pear. Aperture tapers gently toward extremity of anterior canal. Shell sculpture of spiral riblets crossed by finer axial lines. Interior of shell polished, color tan. Shell color pinkish-gray to light-tan. The animal is cream-colored with dark and whitish spots; the photo of the live fig snail was taken by Amy Tripp on Kice Island, Collier Co., Florida. Color opaque white. The egg capsules in the photos were laid in the Museum live tanks. The opaque-white, translucent egg capsules are stacked on top of one another and are attached at one small area of their fluted edge. The detail photo shows one single egg capsule containing about a dozen larvae. Egg capsules of the Mauve-mouth Drill, Calotrophon ostrearum, are visible on the surface of that Atlantic Fig capsule. Ficus ficus (Linnaeus, 1758) (=Ficus communis Röding, 1798) is a separate species with parts of it distribution overlapping with that of the Atlantic Fig.