The world's top 10 famous conch shells

Conch is one of the common seafoods. It has tender and delicious meat and rich nutrition. It is a typical natural animal food with high protein, low fat and high calcium. So what are the delicious types of conch? Delicious conchs include mud snails, fragrant conchs, Dongfeng conchs, coconut conchs, cat's eye conchs, horseshoe conchs, flat jade conchs, stick cone conchs, sesame conchs, spicy conchs, etc. Today, we have sorted out the top ten famous conch species in the world. Let's take a look at the ranking and related information of conchs.

Fighting conch ornaments

1. Mud snail (fresh and sweet/tender and chewy)

Mud snail is one of the most delicious conch species, mainly distributed in Japan, North Korea and coastal areas of mainland China. The body of the mud snail is rectangular, with a large and thick head, an underdeveloped mantle, and well-developed lateral feet that cover part of the shell on both sides. The shell is oval. The shell of the juvenile is thin and brittle, while the adult is harder and white. The surface seems to be carved with spiral rings, and the inside is smooth with a yellow-brown outer skin.

Mud snail, photographed at Carrefour Supermarket

Mud snails are generally caught and put on the market after 5-6 months of free-range. The snail meat is refreshing and can be used to make porridge or stir-fry. The best quality is produced when peach blossoms are in full bloom from Grain Rain to Grain Full, and the taste is particularly delicious. The "Osmanthus Mud Snail" produced during the Mid-Autumn Festival is not as good as the "Peach Blossom Mud Snail" produced in the third month of the lunar calendar, but it is also large and fat, and extremely delicious.

2. Fragrant snail (Fragrant/Fragrant and Slippery Meat)

Fragrant snail, also known as ringing snail and golden snail, is a species endemic to my country. It is found in the Yellow Sea and Bohai Sea and is mainly distributed in Guangdong, Fujian, Liaoning, Shandong and other regions. The shell of the fragrant snail is nearly diamond-shaped, with a hard shell and a light brown color. It likes to live on the seabed with high salinity. It has developed salivary glands that can secrete protease and feed on algae and microorganisms. The reason why the fragrant snail is called fragrant snail is that its meat tastes very sweet. 

Although the taste is average, it is very tender, especially the yellow at the tail, which is really fragrant. The blanched fragrant snail is delicious, retaining the original flavor of the fragrant snail, and the fragrance is lingering on the lips and teeth, making people want to eat it after eating it. However, the editor reminds you not to drink ice water when eating fragrant snails, otherwise you will have diarrhea.

3. Dongfeng Conch (delicious meat/crispy and refreshing)

Dongfeng Conch mainly includes mud Dongfeng Conch and square-spotted Dongfeng Conch, which are high-quality sea snails that are very popular in the domestic and foreign markets. Dongfeng Conch has a grayish white shell, a yellow-brown skin, and faint light brown spots. It is also called flower snail. It is vertically distributed in the subtidal zone at a depth of several meters to tens of meters. The water temperature adaptation range is 14-33℃, the salinity adaptation range is 14-34, and the pH value adaptation range is 8.0-8.4. The maturity and breeding period is from April to September. 

Dongfeng conch has a light smell, which is very suitable for those who don't like the smell of seafood. The general cooking methods include blanching, stir-frying with spicy sauce and stir-frying with sauce. After being cooked, the meat is firm, light orange and has a unique sweet taste of the ocean. The taste is crisper than ordinary conchs, so many people like to eat it.

4. Coconut snail (crisp and chewy/fresh and sweet)

Coconut snail is also called papaya snail. The shell is yellow-brown, shaped like a papaya, smooth and with black-brown spots. It is mainly distributed in warm and tropical sandy shallow seas. Coconut snails are carnivorous sea snails that like to eat shellfish and bottom-dwelling small animals. They are very large, with a shell length of more than 20 cm. However, there are not many edible parts. Generally, only the gastropod part is eaten. 

Cutting it into slices and stir-frying or making soup is a good choice. Coconut snail meat itself has no taste. Stir-frying with heavy oil and sauce is very delicious with the crisp taste of snail meat. If you make soup with ribs or chicken, the soup is fresh and delicious. In addition to being delicious, coconut snails are best known for producing pearls - Melo pearls, which are a kind of precious natural seawater pearls.

5. Cat's eye snail (Q-elastic meat/delicious taste)

Cat's eye snail is one of the top ten delicious sea snails. It is named because it has a mouth cover that looks like a cat's eye when crawling. Cat's eye snails are often distributed in the tropical Indian Pacific Ocean. The shell mouth is yellow or green-yellow, and the entire shell surface is rich in color. The common shell color combination is dark brown background with black stripes, mixed with white spots and stripes, and there is also green-yellow without pattern. The snail meat is edible and the shell can be carved into works of art. Cat's eye snails can be stir-fried or steamed. 

When stir-frying, add seasonings and ingredients until they are well-seasoned. When steaming, first clean the cat's eye snails, put them in the pot and steam them, then dip them in the sauce made of oil, ginger and vinegar and eat them. The meat is chewy and delicious. It is a kind of conch that is very popular with consumers.

6. Horseshoe snail (tender meat without fishy smell/delicious and delicious)

What kind of conch is the most delicious? Horseshoe snails distributed in shallow coastal waters from the equator to high latitudes are world-renowned aquatic ingredients. The short conical shell of the horseshoe snail is flattened at one end, and it is named after its shape resembling a horseshoe. It is widely distributed and can be seen from the intertidal zone to the deep sea. The male and female are dioecious, fertilized in vitro, and most have free-swimming larvae. 

The horseshoe snail tastes delicious and can be cooked in salt water. A little ginger juice and balsamic vinegar can bring out the original flavor. It is also very delicious when used to make soup. In addition, the pearl layer of the horseshoe snail shell is very thick and has a good pearl luster. It can be used as a decoration, but it contains heavy metal elements that are harmful to the human body, so it is worth paying attention to when using it.

7. Flat Jade Snail (firm meat/yellow seeds and fresh fragrance)

A large number of flat jade snails, photographed at Tuandao Farmers Market

Flat jade snails are edible conchs. Their meat is used as a side dish, and their shells are used for viewing and can be made into handicrafts. The shell of the flat jade snail is hemispherical, hard and thick, with a flat and wide back and abdomen, a low shell top, a short spiral part, and a sudden increase in the width of the body whorl. The shell surface is smooth and ribless, with obvious growth lines. The shell surface is light yellow-brown, the shell top is purple-brown, and the base is white. Because of its large and deep navel, it is also called the belly button snail.

Flat Jade Snail, Photographed in the Sea of Zhanshan, Qingdao

Because the flat jade snail lives in the sand on the seabed, you must remember to "spit out" the sand before eating it. The meat is firm, and the yellow seeds at the tail are very fresh and fragrant, even with the taste of crab roe. After stir-frying, it is very tasty and has a good taste. The large flat jade snail can be boiled, sliced and mixed with cucumbers, which tastes better than conch.

8. Cone snail (Q-elastic and chewy/unique way to eat)

Cone snails are different from other conchs. They are very slender and have a uniform spiral shape from top to bottom. The snail meat inside is also long and spiral-shaped, which is very unique. The opening is relatively small and the tail is relatively sharp. It is very delicious when simply stir-fried. Cone snails are a common ingredient in night market stalls. After the cone snails have spit out the mud and sand, the tail is knocked off. The fried conch is easy to taste and more convenient to eat. Just suck it with your lips, and the delicious snail meat will flow into your mouth along with the soup. 

The meat is tender and the taste is very tempting. Cone snails are also rich in protein, vitamins, and essential amino acids and trace elements for the human body. They are high-protein, low-fat, high-calcium natural health food and are known as "Pearl on the Plate".

9. Sesame snail (Plump and delicate/firm taste)

The single-toothed snail, also known as the sesame snail, is a wide-temperature benthic shellfish, widely distributed in the intertidal zones of northern and southern my country, and is a delicious conch. The shell of the single-toothed snail is tower-shaped, with a dark green shell surface and white, green-brown and yellow-brown color patterns. The shell mouth is nearly heart-shaped, with a thin outer lip edge and a thick inner edge. 

Its edge has rib-shaped teeth, and the base of the inner lip is thickened to form a strong white single tooth. It mostly lives on rocks, in cracks or under stones in the middle and upper areas of the intertidal zone, and feeds on seaweed. The meat of the sesame snail has a unique sweetness and the unique freshness of seafood. It has a firm taste and is rich in nutrients, especially rich in vitamin E, which is very helpful in preventing skin pigmentation and inhibiting skin aging.

10. Spicy snail (firm and elastic snail meat/slightly spicy)

The scientific name of the spicy snail is the warty litchi snail. Because there is capsaicin at the tail of the snail meat, it tastes a little spicy, so it is called spicy snail. The spicy snail is spindle-shaped, with a hard and thick shell. The shell surface is gray-green and yellow-brown, often mixed with white stripes. The inner surface of the shell is yellow-white, and the inner side of the outer lip is black-purple. It is distributed on the coast and is one of the most common snails in the rocky intertidal zone. It feeds on barnacles and bivalves.

Warty Lychee Snail, photographed at Tuandao Farmers Market

Spicy snails are one of the easiest snails to pick up when going to the sea. The meat is firm and elastic, slightly bitter and spicy, gently stimulating the taste buds, and even people who don't eat spicy food can accept it. Because the shell of spicy snails is thick, it is not suitable for stir-frying with sauce or scallion oil. It is more suitable for cooking soup after processing. It is not only delicious, but also has the effects of softening and dispersing nodules, clearing away heat and detoxifying.

The ranking of the top ten conchs in the world is based on the taste, characteristics, and quality of common conchs, and refers to the public popularity of conch species and other related information, and then combined with other related rankings/lists on the Internet for comprehensive ranking recommendations. The list is for reference only. If you have any questions, please comment/communicate at the end.

animal tags： conch