Kauri [1] , or cypreids [2] , or porcelain snails [1] [2] ( lat. Cypraeidae ) - a family of marine gastropod mollusks that live in warm, mainly tropical seas, some are found in the Mediterranean Sea . There are about 300 species. Kauri is characterized by an abundance of options for drawing and coloring.
| Kauri |
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| Scientific classification |
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| No rank : | Bilateral symmetrical |
| Subclass : | Price gastropods |
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| International scientific name |
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Cypraeidae Rafinesque , 1815 |
| Childbirth |
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see text |
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They feed on algae. Hiding in the crevices of the debris of dead corals , burrowing in the sand, and during the new moons and full moons crawl out and stay on the rocks. Some species of the family were used as money and inlaid with funeral masks.
Content
Tsipreya have peculiar shells. This led to the appearance of specific terms that describe certain structural features of these shells. At the shells of tsiprey, it is customary to distinguish between the dorsal (upper), base (lower) surfaces, as well as the basal (lateral) edge and the middle platform.
Shells Cypraea moneta and Cypraea annulus were used as currency [3] . The first use of kauri as money began in China 3,500 years ago. Over time, they were replaced by copper coins, but in Yunnan, the kauri as a means of payment remained until the end of the 19th century . From China, the kauri came to Japan , Korea , India , Thailand , and the Philippines . In India, kauri reached the greatest distribution in the 4th – 6th centuries and survived until the mid-19th century. In the Philippines, they were replaced by copper coins only by 1800 [3] . The ground for the rapid spread of kauri in Africa was the development of the slave trade in the early 16th century. Portuguese, Dutch and English merchants bought kauri in India and then sold them in Guinea for a double or triple price. Trading operations with kauri at that time on the territory of Central and West Africa reached enormous proportions [3] .
In Azerbaijan, kauri, as money, were used until the 17th century. In the XII-XIV centuries in Russia, in the so-called non - coinage period , the kauri also served as money and were called insect, millstone, snake heads. Kauri shells are often found during excavations in the Novgorod and Pskov lands in burials [4]