Why these beautiful shells were given the nick name Spider Conch I will never know. When you think of a spider you think of something to be feared. Living on the Island we are made aware of the dangers of the Black Widow and the Brown Recluse Spiders. The Lambis family of shells are not to be feared even thought they look foreboding with their many fingers that resemble the legs of a spider. The animal inside the shell is harmless. It is not a flesh eater nor does it inflict a sting. It feeds on plant life such as algae. The movement of the animal is significantly different from most ocean snails in that it doesn’t glide along on the sandy bottoms like most snails. It uses its pointed trap door (operculum) that is on the back of its foot to dig in the sand and propel itself along. I classify them as hoppers in their movement. There are 60 plus different species known to date. One way to spot them is to look at the end of the shell and see if it has a notch. The notch is called the stromboid notch and is used by the animal to position one of its eyes. Some strombus grow to be very large such as the Strombus Goliath, while others are as small as twenty four or five millimeters. You find them in warm tropical waters.