What’s quite good about doing an A to Z seashore theme is that you just know that someone, somewhere will have used “X” to name a family in the taxonomy, so it removes the X-day stress! 

Superfamily Xenophoroidea, family Xenophoridae have four different family members in the Arabian seas.

They are unusual in the fact that they attach foreign material to the shell surface, particularly at the periphery of the last whorl, apparently to escape detection. The animal leaps or loops over the sea bed, prefers warm water, feeding on algae. Some may be dredged from considerable depths.

Of the four types featured in Donald Bosch’s book Sea Shells of Eastern Arabia, Xenophora chinensis, Xenophora solaris, Xenophora corrugata and Xenophora pallidula found over all regions within the Arabian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman, I have only ever found one type, Xenophora chinensis.

On a local beach, not far from Dubai port, this unusual lumpy little shell litters the tide-line.

I have a way to go before being able to complete this family in my collection…..