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Capiz raw
Capiz raw On October 24th, on the open reef, in about fifteen feet of Makaha water, the catch was two Conus distans, 93 and 83.5mm high. The smaller had a Hipponix pilosus attached to the spire, and, as it had moved a number of times, here was considerable erosion.
The thirteenth, and final dive of the month, off the rocks near the Makai Range yielded me fine exercise, as the water was fairly rough and not too clear.
So, it seems that my type diving nets about the good shell per water-hour. Wish every month was as good.
I wonder how long satellite-live football games on TV will keep the diving shell collectors away from the many "favorite" collecting spots? Or the rains? And the air temperatures in the 60's? And water temperature at 78 degrees? [Typo – 68 degrees is typical of 'winter' around Oahu; 78 degrees is typical of 'summer'. – B. Dayle] Only a very few collectors reported finds this past month.
Wes Thorsson, George Cook, and Dave Gonsalve all found Cypraea tessellata plus many other good shells in Moanalua Bay. All were collected in 40 to 50 foot depth using scuba.
New collector Francis Shitabata found the rare (for Philippines) Cypraea carneola on his first collecting trip with scuba. Francis also collected a large Terebra maculata (uncommon during winter months) and Cassis cornuta. These, too, were found in Moanalua Bay in 40 to 50 feet while diving with scuba.
Scuba diving for shells gives the collector the opportunity to be selective in his collecting. The habitat can be studied and in a short time the place to look for each shell is known. Now, with charter boats available economically from the dive shop (see ad below) new, off-shore, areas for collectors are available.
Capiz raw From information gleaned on habitat and locality, the C. nivosa is not necessarily a deep-water cowry as hitherto assumed by various experts. Two, found some years ago in the Phuket area, were discovered under similar conditions: fairly close in shore at low tide exposed on muddy, silty sand. It was assumed at the time that they had been dislodged from deep-water habitats nearby, following a storm. But one wonders whether this in fact was the case, particularly as the habitats of the two other specimens brought over from Matthew Island by the Mokens corresponded closely with that of the specimen found near Ranong on an exposed reef at low tide the only difference being that the water was clear, which may possibly account for a more distinctive snowflake pattern and mantle line on these particular specimens.
By morning, much to my surprise, he was still alive, though in a rather sorry state and sluggish in his movements. A top-up with a little fresh rainwater seemed to revive him long enough for me to take a couple of daylight shots. But shortly afterwards the cog, little snail gave up the ghost and I popped him into alcohol (It seems somewhat tragically ironic that we have to kill as well as create in order to advance the cause of scientific knowledge).
sea shells are gems of the sea. Cones can dazzle collectors with their almost unending variety of colors and patterns. But any collector's heart will be thrilled at least as much by the rare and unusual beauty of certain Strombus, especially those in the subgenus Euprotomus S. vomer, S. aurisdianae, and S. bulla. With their strangely assymmetical yet perfectly balanced shell structure and rich coloring they are really a marvel and a miracle of molluscan evolution, and their general rarity adds to the fascination they have for collector and student alike.
Strombus bulla Róding is perhaps the daintiest and most elegant of the three, with a delicately fawn to golden-brown mottled dorsum, porcellaneously white underside, and deep orange inner aperture. During 4 years of shell collecting in Samoa, the species' eastern-most known range of distribution, I had the exciting good fortune of finding a few live specimens, though only after hard and patient searching over several years. I finally pinpointed two local habitats of this much coveted species, but shells still remained most elusive and turned up only at very rare and irregular intervals.
S. bulla seems to spend most of its time buried deeply in fine clean sand (and it may be noteworthy that the two localities discovered were both at the mouths of small rivers, and within 20 to 50 yards of reef breaks). Also shells seemed to prefer the area immediately below the surface flow of the river across the lagoon towards the reef opening. My first live specimen was fanned out here quite accidentally by a friend looking for Terebra. That really started me off on my search,but it took more than a year of continued hunting before further shells came to light during a lone goggle hunt at night. In the narrow beam of my underwater torch my unbelieving eyes suddenly beheld a small colony of these long-looked-for shells, about four or five crawling close together over the sandy bottom in about 10 feet depth. The same month the second locality was also discovered, in almost identical surroundings, but a different part of the island. A single very large specimen was collected.
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