Lewis’s Moonsnail (Euspira lewisii) is the largest snail in the Puget Sound. They were named after Merriweather Lewis after he discovered them at the mouth of the Columbia River. The Moonsnail’s shell can be as large as 5.5 inches with its body length reaching nearly 12 inches when fully extended. The one pictured to the left has a lot more growing to do. If you are lucky you may find a Moonsnail on a sandy beach at low tide. You may dig one up while looking for clams. That Moonsnail was probably looking for clams too! Moonsnails are predators, meaning they eat other animals, and their meal of choice is the clam. Once they have located a clam, they use their rough tongue, called a radula, to drill a hole in the bottom of the clam shell and eat what is inside.

In the spring and summer, you may also find Moonsnail eggs on the beach. At first glace, it may look like a piece of trash. If you look closer, you may notice it looks like the sand from the beach. Moonsnails mix their eggs in with some sand and they use their slime to hold it all together. This forms what is called an egg collar because is looks like an old-fashioned detachable shirt collar. As this egg collar starts to break apart in the waves, the eggs hatch and the young moonsnails are released to spend the first part of their life floating in the water as plankton. When they start making their shell, they will settle on the sea floor.

OEE Blog