Maldives Marine Life

Marine life of Maldivian waters

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Porous cowrie
No photo available
Photo: H. Zell / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0 (view on Wikimedia Commons)Empty shell or beach specimen. Shell photo (empty shell), not the living animal.

Porous cowrie

Naria poraria

Valid name (WoRMS, AphiaID 1075025, checked 2026-10-31).

English
Porous cowrie
Scientific
Naria poraria
Dhivehi
No recorded Dhivehi name
Group
Cowries
Family
Cypraeidae (cowries)
IUCN status
NE · Not EvaluatedNot Evaluated (NE)

Description

The porous cowrie is a small cowrie with a back of white spots on a brown background and purple sides and base. It lives under rocks on shallow, wave-exposed reefs.

In the Maldives

Recorded from the Maldives: museum specimens (n=16); iNaturalist research-grade observations in the Maldives (n=6, 4 observers).

Sources

Dhivehi name source: No species-level Dhivehi name found in Dhivehi Wikipedia, SeaLifeBase (country: Maldives) or MRS/MMRI invertebrate publications.