Due to variations within species, your item may not look identical to the image provided. Like almost all shelled gastropods, conches have spirally constructed shells. Again, as is normally the case in many gastropods, this spiral shell growth is usually right-handed, but on very rare occasions it can be left-handed. True conches have long eye stalks, with colorful ring-marked eyes at the tips. The shell has a long and narrow aperture, and a short siphonal canal, with another indentation near the anterior end called a stromboid notch. This notch is where one of the two eye stalks protrudes from the shell. The true conch has a foot ending in a pointed, sickle-shaped, operculum, which can be dug into the substrate as part of an unusual "leaping" locomotion. True conches grow a flared lip on their shells only upon reaching sexual maturity. This is called an alated outer lip or alation. Conches lay eggs in long strands; the eggs are contained in twisted, gelatinous tubes.[6] Strombus moves with a leaping motion.[7]
