Venus Comb Shell, Murex pecten

This shallow-water marine species demonstrates the sense of building a shell that is as large and hard to bite as possible. The animal creates the spines by forming its flesh into long, narrow tubes and filling them in with shell material. It was first scientifically named in the auction catalog of the collection of the Duchess of Portland in 1786, though it was known in China and Japan as “fish-bone shell” long before that.