The « Checkerboard Cowrie » is a highly distinctive cypraeid with its four characteristic dark blotches on the dorsum. An exceedingly famous and much sought-after species, it is very variable in blotch development and is thus not easy to find a specimen with well-balanced 'checkerboard' pattern; it is also rather variable in callous development. An omnivorous gastropod, it lives under corals and rocks from rather shallow to moderately deep water ranging around -3~50m. Almost all specimens are from Hawaii where it is uncomm.on (live specimens becoming rarer recently) and it was once thought to be an endemic there. From the 1980s, however, a few have been taken live around Taiwan and more recently in the Philippines; its true range therefore appears to be quite wide. It appear to only occur in the deep water in the western Pacific and is extremely rare there; the name Luria lani (Raybaudi 1986) was given to the Taiwanese population but is currently regarded as a junior synonym. Typical shell length around 30mm., extremely large individuals are known to reach 55mm.

Oahu Island, Hawaii