The Dogwinkle Snail is one of several Pacific Northwest species of tidal snails. The highly variable frilled Dogwinkle is different physically from other similar species. It has no grooved channels encircling the shell and lacks coloured bands like other snails. In sheltered areas, they commonly have a thin frill along the shell, but when growing on a wave-swept beach, the frills are often missing.
This snail is a major predator of barnacles, feeding primarily on the acorn barnacle. It drills a hole in the prey using its teeth-covered tongue and injects poison into the barnacle. The snail can then insert its tongue to scrape out the meat. Sometimes they are so prevalent that they limit the number of barnacles in a given area. The Red Rock Crab along with a few starfish feed on the Dogwinkle Snail.
The Frilled Dogwinkle is more abundant in winter or early spring along the low tide line. Females that are four or more years old will lay many yellow eggs about 1 cm long that they attach to rocks. They lay their eggs in a communal nursery. A female can lay up to 1,000 eggs per year. After a month or so the young snails hatch by piercing the egg case, only about 1 percent survive to 1 year old.
In the spring and summer months, yellow egg cases can be seen attached to the substrate on stalks, some call these sea oats. The sexes are separated, the male has a penis and the sperm is placed internally. After hatching, the larvae are free-swimming. These are very common on our shores, look on the rocks.