Cart-rut Shell

About this species

Dicathais is a genus of predatory sea snails, marine gastropod molluscs in the family Muricidae, the rock snails. This genus is monotypic; the only species in it is Dicathais orbita, common name the white rock shell or cart-rut shell, found round the coasts of Australia and New Zealand.

Text from the Wikipedia article “Dicathais”, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Read the article

Where and when

Where it has been recorded

Worldwide

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Best months

Worldwide (open data)

January: 969 records
February: 669 records
March: 875 records
April: 711 records
May: 619 records
June: 522 records
July: 456 records
August: 571 records
September: 629 records
October: 830 records
November: 698 records
December: 780 records

Depth and water temperature

Depth

Mostly recorded at 0–9 m · Deepest record: 24 m

0–10 m: 757 records
10–20 m: 78 records
20–30 m: 2 records

Water temperature

Recorded in surface water of 13–23 °C

12–14 °C: 16 records
14–16 °C: 195 records
16–18 °C: 54 records
18–20 °C: 24 records
20–22 °C: 39 records
22–24 °C: 13 records

Photos

(c) Terra Occ, some rights reserved (CC BY), uploaded by Terra Occ · CC BY · iNaturalist
(c) Jacqui Geux, some rights reserved (CC BY) · CC BY · iNaturalist
(c) Grady Duffy, some rights reserved (CC BY) · CC BY · iNaturalist
(c) Shaun Lee, some rights reserved (CC BY) · CC BY · iNaturalist
(c) Timo Walcher, some rights reserved (CC BY) · CC BY · iNaturalist
(c) Tim, some rights reserved (CC BY) · CC BY · iNaturalist
(c) ttsquid, some rights reserved (CC BY) · CC BY · iNaturalist

Names and classification

English: Cart-rut Shell, Cart-rut Whelk, Cart-wheel Purple, White Rock Shell

Names in 1 more languages

Japanese: ワダチレイシ

Other scientific names: Buccinum orbita, Dicathais aegrota, Dicathais scalaris, Dicathais textilosa, Dicathais vector, Haustrum ventricosum, Neothais scalaris, Polytropa succincta, Purpura aegrota, Purpura scalaris, Purpura succincta, Purpura textilosa, Thais orbita, Thais textilosa

Similar species

Common Small Purple
Agnewia tritoniformis
Arakawania granulata
Arakawania marginalba
Arakawania musiva
Bedeva paivae
Bedeva vinosa

Sources and credits

Names and taxonomy: WoRMS (CC BY 4.0) and the GBIF Backbone (CC BY 4.0). Photos: iNaturalist observers, each under the licence shown (CC0, CC BY or CC BY-SA).

Depth, temperature, months and maps: records from OBIS and GBIF under CC0 or CC BY.
Descriptions: Wikipedia, licensed CC BY-SA, each linked to its article.
Conservation status as published by GBIF (IUCN Red List).
4,726 open-data records from 1880 to 2023.
Species data updated November 2, 2026.