This species lives on rocks in shallow water. It was known since ancient times as a source for purple dye and also as a popular food source under various names, among which sconciglio, from which comes the word scungilli. This snail lives in the central and western parts of the Mediterranean Sea and has been found on isolated coral atoll beaches in the Indian Ocean and South China Sea. It was used by the Phoenicians in ancient times to extract imperial Tyrian purple dye. Fossil shells of this species have been found in Cyprus, Spain and Italy. This species is known in the fossil record from the Pliocene (age range: from 3.6 to 2.588 million years ago). Bolinus brandaris (originally called Murex brandaris by Linnaeus and also Haustellum brandaris), and commonly known as the purple dye murex or the spiny dye-murex, is a species of medium-sized predatory sea snail, an edible marine gastropod mollusk in the family Muricidae, the murex snails or the rock snails.
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