Boat shell
Crepidula fornicata (Linnaeus, 1758)
Status not recordedsnails and slugs
The boat shell (Crepidula fornicata) is a species in the family Calyptraeidae, order Littorinimorpha.
No freely licensed photo yet
Quick facts about the boat shell
- Weight
- Not recorded
- Length
- Not recorded
- Lifespan
- Not recorded
- Main food
- Not recorded
- Habitat
- Not recorded
- Young per litter or clutch
- Not recorded
- Conservation status
- Not recorded
- Countries on record
- Not recorded
Where does the boat shell live?
Not recorded
Where has it been introduced?
The Global Register of Introduced and Invasive Species lists the boat shell as introduced in 12 countries, and flagged as invasive in 6 of them.
- Denmarkinvasive
- Franceinvasive
- Italyinvasive
- Netherlandsinvasive
- Swedeninvasive
- United Kingdominvasive
- Belgium
- Germany
- Greece
- Ireland
- Malta
- Spain
Introduced means brought by people and now present; invasive means the country's checklist records an impact. A species can be native to one part of a country and introduced in another. Source: Global Register of Introduced and Invasive Species (CC BY 4.0).
Is the boat shell endangered?
No conservation assessment is recorded for this species in our sources. That is not the same as being safe: it has not been matched to an assessment.
How is the boat shell classified?
- kingdomAnimalia
- phylumMollusca
- classGastropoda
- orderLittorinimorpha
- familyCalyptraeidae
- genusCrepidula
- SpeciesCrepidula fornicata (Linnaeus, 1758)
Synonyms Crepidula densata, Crepidula riisei, Crepidula virginica, Crypta densata, Crypta fornicata, Crypta nautarum, Crypta nauturum, Patella fornicata
Other names and names in other languages (31)
- American slipper limpetEnglish
- American slipper-limpetEnglish
- Atlantic slipper shellEnglish
- Common Atlantic slippersnailEnglish
- Common slipper limpetEnglish
- Common slipper shellEnglish
- Common slipper snailEnglish
- Oyster-pestEnglish
- Slipper limpetEnglish
- Slipper shellEnglish
- EsclopCatalan
- hučka střevícováCzech
- tøffelsneglDanish
- PantoffelschneckeGerman
- crépiduleFrench
- ネコゼフネガイJapanese
- Paprastoji klumpsraigėLithuanian
- muiltjeDutch
- Крепидула сводчатаяRussian
- krepidula klenutáSlovak
- ostronpestSwedish
- Amerikanische PantoffelschneckeGerman
- PorzellanpantoffelGerman
- berlingot de merFrench
- Crépidule commune de l'AtlantiqueFrench
- crépidule pontéeFrench
- Amerikaans muiltjeDutch
- gewoon muiltjeDutch
- slipperDutch
- slippertjeDutch
- toffelsnäckaSwedish
Relatives of the boat shell
Other species in the same genus Crepidula.
Onyx slippersnail
Crepidula onyx
Hooked slippersnail
Crepidula adunca
Flat boat shell
Crepidula plana
Convex slippersnail
Crepidula convexa
Spotted slippersnail
Crepidula maculosa
Slipper limpet
Crepidula porcellana
CompareBoat shell vs Onyx slippersnailBoat shell vs Hooked slippersnailBoat shell vs Flat boat shellBoat shell vs Convex slippersnail
Common questions
Answered only where our data holds the answer.
Is the boat shell an invasive species?
In some places. The Global Register of Introduced and Invasive Species flags the boat shell as invasive in 6 countries, including Denmark, France, Italy, Netherlands and Sweden. It lists it as introduced in 12 in all.
What kind of animal is the boat shell?
The boat shell (Crepidula fornicata) belongs to the family Calyptraeidae in the order Littorinimorpha.
Sources and how to cite this page
Data as of 2026-11-13. How this page is put together.
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Myhrvold, N.P., Baldridge, E., Chan, B., Sivam, D., Freeman, D.L. & Ernest, S.K.M. (2015) An amniote life-history database to perform comparative analyses with birds, mammals, and reptiles. Ecology 96: 3109. https://doi.org/10.1890/15-0846R.1. Data: https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.3563457.v1 - AmphiBIO, a global database for amphibian ecological traits · CC BY 4.0 · v1
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Herberstein, M.E., McLean, D.J., Lowe, E. et al. (2022) AnimalTraits: a curated animal trait database for body mass, metabolic rate and brain size. Scientific Data 9: 265. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41597-022-01364-9. Data: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.6468938 - AVONET: morphological, ecological and geographical data for all birds · CC BY 4.0 · v7
Tobias, J.A. et al. (2022) AVONET: morphological, ecological and geographical data for all birds. Ecology Letters 25: 581–597. https://doi.org/10.1111/ele.13898. Data: https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.16586228.v7 - Catalogue of Life eXtended Release · CC BY 4.0 · 2026-10-16 XR
Catalogue of Life (2026). Catalogue of Life eXtended Release, version 2026-10-16 XR. Catalogue of Life Foundation, Amsterdam, Netherlands. https://doi.org/10.48580/dgzlf - Wikimedia Commons · per file (CC0 / public domain / CC BY green, CC BY-SA amber, anything else not displayed) · 2026-11-11
Wikimedia Commons contributors. Wikimedia Commons. https://commons.wikimedia.org (each file credited to its author under its own licence). - EltonTraits 1.0: species-level foraging attributes of the world's birds and mammals · CC0 1.0 · 1.0
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Pagad, S., Genovesi, P., Carnevali, L., Schigel, D. & McGeoch, M.A. (2018) Introducing the Global Register of Introduced and Invasive Species. Scientific Data 5: 170202. https://doi.org/10.1038/sdata.2017.202. Country checklists published through GBIF by the IUCN SSC Invasive Species Specialist Group. - LepTraits 1.0: a globally comprehensive dataset of butterfly traits · CC0 1.0 · 1.0
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Logghe, G., Batsleer, F., Maes, D. et al. (2025) An in-depth dataset of northwestern European arthropod life histories and ecological traits. Biodiversity Data Journal 13: e146785. https://doi.org/10.3897/BDJ.13.e146785. Data: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.13379714 - Palmer Archipelago penguin measurements (Palmer Station LTER) · CC0 1.0 · 0.1.0
Gorman, K.B., Williams, T.D. & Fraser, W.R. (2014) Ecological sexual dimorphism and environmental variability within a community of Antarctic penguins (genus Pygoscelis). PLoS ONE 9(3): e90081. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0090081. Data: Palmer Station Antarctica LTER, via Horst, A.M., Hill, A.P. & Gorman, K.B. (2020) palmerpenguins. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3960218 - ReptTraits: a comprehensive dataset of ecological traits in reptiles · CC BY 4.0 · v1-2
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Mull, C.G., Pacoureau, N., Pardo, S.A. et al. (2022) Sharkipedia: a curated open access database of shark and ray life history traits and abundance time-series. Scientific Data 9: 559. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41597-022-01655-1. Data: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.6656525 - SquamBase 1.0 - a dataset of squamate species traits · CC0 1.0 · 1.0-dryad-v5
Meiri, S. (2024) SquamBase - a database of squamate (Reptilia: Squamata) traits. Global Ecology and Biogeography 33(4): e13812. https://doi.org/10.1111/geb.13812. Data: https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.76hdr7t3b - TraitCH: a multi-taxa functional trait dataset for Switzerland and Europe · CC BY 4.0 · 2.0
Chauvier, Y., Adde, A., Bergamini, A. et al. (2025) TraitCH: a multi-taxa functional trait dataset for Switzerland and Europe. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.15063844 - Wikidata · CC0 1.0 · 2026-11-11
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Wikipedia contributors. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. https://en.wikipedia.org (text under CC BY-SA 4.0; each block names its article and revision). - Sex-specific median life expectancies from ex situ populations for 330 animal species · CC BY 4.0 · 2018-07
Che-Castaldo, J.P., Byrne, A., Perišin, K. & Faust, L.J. (2019) Sex-specific median life expectancies from ex situ populations for 330 animal species. Scientific Data 6: 190019. https://doi.org/10.1038/sdata.2019.19. Data: https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.7539968.v1
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CreatureData. (2026). Boat shell (Crepidula fornicata). Retrieved from https://creaturedata.com/animals/boat-shell
“Boat shell (Crepidula fornicata).” CreatureData, 2026, https://creaturedata.com/animals/boat-shell.
@misc{boat_shell_2026,
title = {Boat shell (Crepidula fornicata)},
author = {{CreatureData}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://creaturedata.com/animals/boat-shell},
note = {Data as of 2026-11-13}
}