Strombus maculatus Sowerby, 1842. (Synonym: Strombus maculatus "Nuttall" Jay, 1839, nomen nudum.) Length, 25 mm; diameter, 14 mm. Shell: elongate, with swollen shoulders; cream with weak maculations of brown, aperture white. Spire: protoconch of four to four and one-half whorls; teleoconch of 8 to 9 whorls, the apical whorls convex, last whorl much the largest with the shoulders swollen; suture indistinct. Sculpture: apical whorls with spiral threads and/or weak nodules; last whorl with numerous microscopic spiral threads. Aperture: elongate; stromboid notch shallow; columella smooth at the center, with 3 to 7 spiral lirae apically and 1 to 10 near the base; interior of body whorl with 20 to 40 fine, raised spiral lirae; operculum stromboid, light brown, with 10 fine serrations. Color: cream with weak maculations and a fine network of yellow, orange-brown or gray-brown; periostracum transparent yellow.
This is the only commonly occurring stromboid in the Hawaiian Islands, found on intertidal solution benches and to depths of 2 m. S. maculatus moves in a series of short, leaping motions, and rights its overturned shell by kicking at the substratum with the operculum (Berg, 1971b). The presence of a molluscivorous Conus generates an escape response, the animals waving their tentacles, flipping the shell backward, and then moving rapidly away from the cone (Berg, 1971b). The egg masses are long, threadlike tubes agglutinated with sand grains. Veliger larvae are common in the plankton in Kaneohe Bay, Oahu, from March to September; the larvae hatch five to seven days after spawning and are probably planktonic for at least five weeks (J. B. Taylor, 1975). These gastropods probably reproduce within a year after settlement.
S. maculatus ranges through the Pacific from Micronesia and eastern Polynesia to Easter Island (Abbott, 1960). This species is much more abundant in the Hawaiian Islands and Marshall Islands than it is elsewhere in its range.