Pelican’s foot

pelican’s foot Aporrhais pespelecani, an edible mollusc inhabiting a single shell, found in the Mediterranean and also in eastern N. Atlantic waters; A. occidentalis is its counterpart on the western side.

The lip of the shell fans out into a shape like a webbed foot, indicating a relationship with the conch. But this is a smaller creature (up to 6 cm/2.25"), less well known, and consumed in only some of the countries on whose shores it occurs, notably Italy. It is abundant in the Adriatic, and has been the subject of a festival, the sagra della crocetta, in the summer in the Marche.