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cowry
EntityQ366291· pop 29· linked from 640 articles

Also known as cowrie

thumb|Cowrie (Ovatipsa chinensis|Cypraea chinensis) with fully extended mantle thumb|Shells of various species of cowrie; all but one have their anterior ends pointing towards the top of this image.

~9 min read

Encyclopedic overview

12 sections
Contents
  • Etymology
  • Shell description
  • Human use
  • Monetary use
  • Ritual use
  • Jewelry
  • Games and gambling
  • Other
  • See also
  • References
  • Further reading
  • External links

thumb|Cowrie (Ovatipsa chinensis|Cypraea chinensis) with fully extended mantle thumb|Shells of various species of cowrie; all but one have their anterior ends pointing towards the top of this image.

Cowrie or cowry () is the common name for a group of small to large sea snails in the family Cypraeidae.

Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “cowry” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.

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