If you observe carefully the hard surfaces inside Cretaquarium, on the rocks or —as in the photos— even on the glass, you may spot small, yellowish, elongated capsules clustered together.

These are the egg capsules of the marine snail Hexaplex trunculus, a Mediterranean gastropod known since antiquity for the production of porphyra.

A few fascinating facts:

– Each female can lay on average around 118 egg capsules in a single spawning.
– Each capsule contains approximately 700 eggs.
– The embryonic development lasts about one month, and this species does not pass through a free larval stage.
– Once hatching is complete, the capsules release tiny, fully formed snails, about 1.6 millimetres long, ready to begin their life on the seabed!