page_title: Cittarium pica
section_title: Biological interactions
hierarchical_section_title: Cittarium pica / Ecology / Biological interactions
caption_attribution_description: English: land hermit crab Coenobita clypeatus in a shell of Cittarium pica. Locality: Half Moon Caye, in Belize.
context_page_description: Cittarium pica, common name the West Indian top shell or magpie shell, is a species of large edible sea snail, a marine gastropod mollusk in the family Tegulidae. This species has a large black and white shell.
  This snail is known as "wilk" or "wilks" in the English-speaking Caribbean islands of the West Indies, where this is a popular food item. The word "will" or "wilks" can used both as a singular form and a plural. This species is however not at all closely related to the species that are known as whelks in the U.S. and in Europe. In some Spanish-speaking parts of the Caribbean, when used as a food source Cittarium pica is known as bulgao, or simply as caracoles. In Venezuela it is called quigua; in Cuba it is called cigua.
  Cittarium pica is considered the third most economically important invertebrate species in the Caribbean, after the spiny lobster and the queen conch. It has gone locally extinct in some habitats due to overfishing and overexploitation.
context_section_description: A small limpet, Lottia leucopleura, often lives on the underside of the shell of this large sea snail. The crab Pinnotheres barbatus is mentioned as a commensal. The sessile vermetid gastropod Dendropoma corrodens (also known as ringed wormsnail) and the tube dwelling polychaete Spirorbis may live attached to the shell of Cittarium pica, as is also the case for several species of algae.
  In the wild, the shell of this species is used extensively by the large land hermit crab species Coenobita clypeatus.
caption: The land hermit crab, Coenobita clypeatus, often uses a shell of Cittarium pica
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