Melongena — Melongena
Melongena Kathy, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0

Shell · Genus

Melongena

Crown conchs

Crown conchs (Melongena corona) are brown-and-white banded snails with rows of spines around the shoulder, abundant in Florida mangroves and a favourite beach find. Florida law restricts collecting live shells in many counties (Lee County bans it), so take only dead shells. Fossil Melongena are known from the Miocene of Florida.

HabitatMangroves and mudflats, Florida and Caribbean
RegionsFlorida, Gulf of Mexico, Caribbean
FamilyMelongenidae
Authority (WoRMS)Schumacher, 1817· WoRMS / MolluscaBase
Status (WoRMS)accepted· WoRMS / MolluscaBase
Classification (WoRMS)Animalia › Mollusca › Gastropoda › Neogastropoda › Melongenidae· WoRMS / MolluscaBase

CITES and protection

Not CITES-listed; Florida limits recreational harvest of live shells.

Care (Byne's disease)

Stable.

Elsewhere

Cite this article

Stratum Study. "Melongena" (Shell family). Stratum Study pack 2026.09, as of 2026-09-19. https://stratum.black/study/shells/melongena. Accessed 2026-09-20.

@misc{stratum-melongena,
  title        = {Melongena},
  author       = {{Stratum Study}},
  howpublished = {\url{https://stratum.black/study/shells/melongena}},
  year         = {2026},
  note         = {Shell family article, Stratum Study pack 2026.09, as of 2026-09-19; sources: stratum, worms, wikidata, commons. Accessed 2026-09-20.}
}

Citations carry the pack version and the article's as-of date so they resolve to the same text later. The facts themselves belong to the sources listed below; cite those for the science.

Sources for this article: Stratum editorial (Stratum editorial);WoRMS / MolluscaBase (CC-BY-4.0);Wikidata (CC0);Wikimedia Commons (CC-BY-4.0). As of 2026-09-19; Study pack 2026.09. Data reproduced under the licences shown; text in Stratum's own words unless a section names its source.

Found an error? Write to drew@tyr.ac with the article id shellFamily:melongena.