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Ornamental
Ornamental The presence in Reunión and Mauritius of C. contaminata is not so surprising as that of C. mariae and C. beckii, since C. contaminata's range is known to include the Indian Ocean from Ceylon to Zanzibar and East Africa.
When questioned about this reported extension of the known range of the three sea shells, Dr. C. M. Burgess, author of The Living sea shells commented: "I believe that the collection of these sea shells in such numbers and under the given circumstances is positive evidence that they exist there in the living state."
Among the many Caribbean shells which I collected at Curaçao is the striking species Strombus gallus Linné, the Rooster Conch. During an eight month stay over there, I only collected seven live specimens at depths varying from four to fifteen feet. Five of them were found between turtle grass, one in sand and one was crawling over old tree leaves, which were covering the bottom over quite an extensive area.
The shell has an average length of five inches, is solid and has blunt spines at the shoulder of the last whorl. Whorls nine to ten, that increase regularly in size. The outer lip is extended at the top into a narrow wing which is longer than the spire. The spiral sculpture consists of a number of ridges on the body whorl, which start as small lirae on the whorls of the spire. These conches occur in different colors, but the aperture is always white.
It is my good fortune to have all these varieties in my collection; a wonderful view to see brown, yellow, purple and red specimens on display. I have always thought that this conch was rather rare and the fact of finding seven shells in an eight month period will underline that. However, numerous dead shells or broken ones, of which the soft parts were eaten by octopus, make me suspect that this shell is more common in deeper water.
Ornamental This rare and beautiful shell was recently discovered and described in Japan. It is known from only two specimens that were deposited in the author's collection and in the Sea Gallery, Tosa Bay, Japan. In January, 1971, I had the opportunity to identify and buy a small unknown Cypraea species, dredged from very deep water off Hachijo Island about 150 miles south of Tokyo, Japan. This shell was the third known specimen of C. midwayensis. The shell is small, being only 21mm long. It superficially resembles a miniature C. teramachii Kuroda.
The original description of this shell appeared in Venus, Vol. 26, page 1. Plate 1. The late Dr. Prof. Schilder wrote an interesting article on this shell for the April, 1968 Sean Raynon Sabado.
Ed. Note: The following is taken from Sean Raynon Sabado for April, 1968, in which the late Dr. Prof. Schilder wrote, "The radula of Nesiocypraea midwayensis differs from all known sea shells by the inverted trapezoid outline of the median tooth (a character observed elsewhere in Ovulidae only) which has a single minute process on the inner surface of the concave posterior margin; the inner marginal tooth shows a needle-like process on the posterior margin (see the figure below)."
The Guam Shell Club holds periodic outings. Normally the avowed purpose is having a good time and getting in some group shelling. Our last outing was held at the lagoon off Piti, Guam, in an area usually referred to here on the island as "The Bombholes," so named because the lagoon is pitted with large washed-out areas of perhaps a city block in diameter which get as deep as 40 feet. Most of the holes are much smaller than this but there are many of them.
The purpose of the outing held on 16 May was to gather Crown-of-Thorns starfish (Acanthaster planci) and destroy as many as possible. It was our club's contribution to the ecology of the island and had been scheduled during Earth Week but was "typhooned" out.
One hundred and fifty-one starfish were collected and destroyed. High total for the day went to Mr. Rip Puls who brought in 58 of the reef-eaters. Divers also collected shells. An even dozen Cypraea tigris from antler coral patches, five C. isabella, a number of C. erosa and C. lynx, several C. caputserpentis and C. helvola were collected. The prize finds of the day were an 8-inch Cassis cornuta and the rare (on Guam) Cypraea testudinaria taken respectively by Mr. Dick Stickroth and Club President, Jack Cunningham.
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