Little Deer Cowry Shell, Macrocypraea cervinetta

Little Deer Cowry Shell, Macrocypraea cervinetta, Juvenile. Shell collected off the beach in the greater Los Cabos area, Baja California Sur, May 2021. Size: 3.7 cm (1.5 inches) x 1.4 cm (0.6 inches).

Little Deer Cowry, Macrocypraea cervinetta, Adult. Shell collected off the beach at Punta Chivato, Baja California Sur, December 2022. Size: 9.1 cm (3.6 inches) x 4.6 cm (1.8 inches) x 3.4 cm (1.3 inches). Collection, photograph and Identifications courtesy of Colin Campbell, DVM, Punta Chivato, Baja California Sur.

Little Deer Cowry, Macrocypraea cervinetta, Adult. Size: 9.2 cm (3.6 inches) x 4.6 cm (1.8 inches) x 3.4 cm (1.3 inches). Shell collected off the beach in the greater Los Cabos area, Baja California Sur, April 2017. Collection, photograph and identification courtesy of Bob Hillis, Ivins, Utah.

Little Deer Cowry, Macrocypraea cervinetta, Adult. Underwater photographs taken in Zihuantanejo Bay, Guerrero, January 2020. Photographs courtesy of Ron Woheau, Zihuantanejo.

Little Deer Cowry, Macrocypraea cervinetta. Underwater photographs taken in Zihuantanejo Bay, Guerrero, January 2020. Photographs and identifications courtesy of Ron Woheau, Zihuantanejo. This should be considered a tentative identification. Cowry’s in the wild without their shell is a very rare citing.

The Little Deer Cowry, Macrocypraea cervinetta (Kiener, 1843), is a gastropod mollusk that is a member of the Cypraeidae Family of Cowries. They are also known as the Panamic Deer Cowry and in Mexico as cuari’ cervatillo. The shell is elongated with a strongly toothed aperture. The dorsal surface is yellowish-brown and covered with round white spots. The spots may transition into rings along the sides and can be absent in the juveniles. Most shells have three or four purplish brown bands across the dorsal surface. Ventrally they are a violet-brown color. The juveniles lack spotting on the shell and teeth along the aperture. The Little Deer Cowry shell is the largest cowry in the area reaching a maximum of 11.0 cm (4.3 inches) in length and 5.5 cm (2.2 inches) in height.

The Little Deer Cowries are found under rocks and within rock crevices and rubble in the intertidal zone to depths up to 24 m (80 feet). They are found in the southern portions of the Sea of Cortez, starting in the La Paz and Guaymas regions, and extend south to Peru; including the Galapagos Islands. They have not been documented along the West Coast of Baja.

A synonym is Cypraea cervinnetta.

Note: The Little Deer Cowry is virtually identical to the Measeled Cowry, Macrocypraea zebra (Linnaeus, 1758) that is a resident of the Atlantic Ocean. It is thought that the two are common ancestors appearing before the country of Panama surfaced separating the two oceans approiximately three million years ago.