Maculastrombus mutabilis

Maculastrombus mutabilis
Canarium mutabile f zebriolatus
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Mollusca
Class:	Gastropoda
Subclass:	Caenogastropoda
Order:	Littorinimorpha
Family:	Strombidae
Genus:	Maculastrombus
Species:	M. mutabilis
Binomial name
Maculastrombus mutabilis (Swainson, 1821)
Synonyms1
Strombus (Canarium) mutabilis f. rufescens Prelle, 2006 (Unavailable name below the species-group) Strombus epimellus Duclos, P.L. in Chenu, J.C., 1844 Strombus flammeus Link, H.F., 1807 Strombus epimellus Duclos in Chenu, 1844 Strombus floridus f. zebriolatus Adam & Leloup, 1938 Strombus flosculosus Mörch, 1852 Strombus mutabilis Swainson, 1821 (basionym)

Maculastrombus mutabilis (Swainson, 1821), commonly known as the variable stromb, is a species of sea snail, a marine gastropod mollusc in the family Strombidae, the true conchs.

It was previously placed in the genera Strombus and Canarium.¹

The shell size varies between 15 mm and 45 mm.

This species is distributed in the Red Sea, in the Indian Ocean along Aldabra, the Chagos Atoll, the Comores, Djibouti; the East Coast of South Africa; Eritrea; Kenya ; Madagascar; the Mascarene Basin, Mauritius, Mozambique; Réunion, the Seychelles, Somalia, Tanzania; the Mediterranean Sea; the Pacific Ocean along the Philippines.

In 2006, Latiolais and colleagues proposed a cladogram that attempts to show the phylogenetic relationships of 34 species within the family Strombidae. The authors analysed 31 species in the genus Strombus including Canarium mutabile (referred to as Strombus mutabilis in their analysis), and three species in the allied genus Lambis. The cladogram was based on DNA sequences of both nuclear histone H3 and mitochondrial cytochrome-c oxidase I (COI) protein-coding gene regions. In this proposed phylogeny, Strombus mutabilis (=Canarium mutabile) and Strombus maculatus are closely related and appear to share a common ancestor.²