Terebia granifera has an elongated shell that grows up to 29.5mm long, It’s conical, has conspicuous tubercles, it coils to the right, operculum is present, it has a pale yellow/brown colour with dark brown early whorls which are sometimes uniformly brown (Picker and Griffiths, 2011).

Shells of Taberia granifera are highly polymorphic, elongate conical and strongly sculptured with both spiral cords and axial ribs, there are usually nodules along the axial ribs. There is no umbilicus and the operculum is oval and paucispiral operculum with an eccentric nucleus. Mantle edge with ventrally papillae of which usually 3–4 are most pronounced on the anal side of the mantle. A brood pouch is located in the head (Ponder et al. 2016).

T. granifera has been reported in the Carribbean from Jamaica, Puerto Rico, Vieques, Dominican Republic, Grenada, Venezuela, Haiti, Antique, Guadeloupe, Martinique and Costa Rica, Florida, Sri Lanka, French Polynesia (McKoy et al., 2011), India, Southeast Asia, The Philippines, Japan, Hawaii (Karatayev et al., 2009), United States (Karatayev et al., 2009), South Africa (Picker and Griffiths, 2011)

T. granifera is found over most of KwaZulu Natal below altitude of 300m, although there are records from higher altitudes. It is also known from Swaziland and Mpumalanga Lowveld, Kruger National Park and it will probably continue spreading (Appleton et al., 2009; Picker and Griffiths, 2011)

T. granifera is mobile and was reported to had been spreading upstream in a river on the island St Lucia at a rate of 100 meters per month (Appleton and Nadasan, 2002).

T. granifera feeds on benthic detritus (Picker and Griffiths, 2011)

In populations of T. granifera, males are scarce and females are pathenogenetic as well as ovoviviparous. Juveniles develop into a shelled stage in an internal brood pouch that contains as many as 27 embryos at any time. Shelled embryos are born at a length of 1-2mm and at a rate of two per-day (Picker and Griffiths, 2011). Breeding has been reported to occur in summer and sexual maturation reached at a shell height of 16.8mm which is reached after only 11-15 weeks (3-4 months). However, a longer maturation period of 6-12 months has also been recorded so it may therefore be possible that T. granifera’s growth rate and development varies according to climate and habitat type (Appleton and Nadasan, 2002)

Benthic