Mitra — Mitra
Mitra Wikimedia Commons contributor, Wikimedia Commons, Public domain (US)

Shell · Genus

Mitra

Mitre shells

Mitre shells (Mitra and relatives in the Mitridae) are slender, spindle-shaped snails with columellar folds and, in the episcopal mitre Mitra mitra, bright orange spots on white. They are common in tourist shell lots and cheap; a few deep-water species are rare. WoRMS has reorganised the family into many genera.

HabitatSand and reef, tropical
RegionsIndo-Pacific, Caribbean, Eastern Pacific
FamilyMitridae
Authority (WoRMS)Lamarck, 1798· WoRMS / MolluscaBase
Status (WoRMS)accepted· WoRMS / MolluscaBase
Extinct (WoRMS)no· WoRMS / MolluscaBase
Classification (WoRMS)Animalia › Mollusca › Gastropoda › Neogastropoda › Mitridae· WoRMS / MolluscaBase

CITES and protection

Not CITES-listed.

Care (Byne's disease)

Stable; the pointed spires chip.

Elsewhere

Cite this article

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

@misc{stratum-mitra,
  title        = {Mitra},
  author       = {{Stratum Study}},
  howpublished = {\url{https://stratum.black/study/shells/mitra}},
  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.