Stellaria solaris BIRUG 19252

BIRUG 19252 is a specimen of *Stellaria solaris*, or the ‘sun carrier shell’. This shell comes from a large species of sea snail that is found off the coast of South Africa, the Arabian Sea, the Bay of Bengal, the South China Sea, and the Philippines. This species belongs to a family of gastropods called the ‘carrier shells’, so called because many members of the group collect smaller shells and cement them to their own. Due to this behaviour they are sometimes also called the ‘shell-collecting shells’. This specimen was collected from China in 1879 by Sowerby and given to the Museum in 1916 by Sir George H. Holcroft. Scanning was performed by Sian Miller using an Artec Spider 3D scanner.