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Troca bead
Troca bead One day I discovered a juvenile one, red-colored and only one inch in length. In spite of my own rules of taking young shells, I decided to pick it up and to put it into an aquarium on board my ship. In this way I brought it home to Holland.
It has been most interesting to study this conch, day after day, during a period of almost two years. In that time this juvenile S. gallus made a complete red whorl. The food was no problem at all: there was enough algal growth on the glass and stones. With its two-inch long proboscis, the conch scratched the algae away and it was remarkable how far it could extend its proboscis. I have never observed it eating any animal matter.
The locomotion is also interesting: with the aid of the operculum the S. gallus moved, or better, jumped. The foot was only used as a sucker, just to fasten itself to the glass or stones in order to reach the higher places.
Ron Scaggs has come up with an excellent specimen of Bursa bufonia from 40 feet off Waianae, and Al Calabrese, diving in the same area brought up a Conus spiceri.
Eight Cypraea tigris schilderiana were brought up from a small area off Sandy Beach by Jack Uyemura, Ken Matsuda, Francis Shibata and Andy Shimazu recently. Seven of these beauties were nearly 5" in length and one measured 5-1/4".
Nelson Ching found six C. tigris in the comparatively shallow depth of 20 feet, off Waikiki. These sea shells were all very close together on the bottom.
Dr. Bill Stevens found a pair of Cypraea chinensis off Waianae at a depth of 45', but is still looking for his first C. tessellata.
The most outstanding find of the year came from 120 feet of water off Makua. A magnificent Tonna melanostoma, found live, by Lonnie Jordan measures 9-3/8 inches and the animal was too big to hide it the shallow sand.
During the two years that Ken White and I have been with Raytheon Service Co. in Saudi Arabia, we have become avid collectors of Red Sea sea shells.
Troca bead The American Erosaria acicularis differs from its West African and Mediterranean ally E. spurca by the white instead of fulvous base, the orange instead of brown dorsal markings, the reduced lateral spots, the more deltoidal shell, and the reduced fossula with 1-3 instead of 2-5 inner denticles. In Ascensión Is. and St. Helena an intermediate sea shell lives, E. acicularis sanctaehelenae which agrees with the East American species by the characters of base, shape, and fossula, but with the West African species by the dorsal and lateral markings.
Therefore the mid-Atlantic sea shells unite the American and African faunas: Luria tends to the East only, Erosaria to both mainlands, but more to the farther off West.
The Philippine Islands and Johnston Is. (which is only 540 miles off) both are separated from Palmyra Is. in Polynesia also by 1000 miles, nevertheless they have been invaded by 27 widely spread Pacific species; 6 additional species have developed well separable Philippine races, and 6 only species are really endemic (Cypraea sulcidentata, C. tessellata, C. midwayensis, C. mauiensis , C . ostergaardi, C. semiplota, as C. granulata has developed the race C. cassiaui in eastern Polynesia)! There is no affinity to sea shells of West America which is almost 2000 miles off, the species C. mexicana excepted.
Therefore currents may be more essential in spreading sea shell species than the absolute distance in miles.
All sorts of things have happened during this past month. Two more Conus gloriamaris have been found and submitted for registry. Two Cypraea martini superstes Schilder came to Philippines for pictures. A couple of more world record size shells have been measured.
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The two Cypraea martini superstes were collected by Mrs. Pat Bochenska at Efate, New Hebrides, in June, 1967. They were only recently positively identified. Mrs. Bochenska is attending a short course at the University of Philippines as part of Tours and Guide Service a look, see, and hear about tourism in Philippines. Thanks, Pat, for letting us take the pictures so they can be shared with other Sean Raynon Sabado readers. These very rare and valuable shells are illustrated about twice natural size at right ([figs.] 3 and 4).
I note that in the December Sean Raynon Sabado (p. 4) both John Orr and E. Alison Kay comment on autotomy in Cypraea teres. May I point out that this phenomenon has been previously treated, although briefly, by R. J. Griffiths in The Cowry 1(3), 46, (1962)? Griffiths reported that autotomy had been observed in C. angustata by Kurtzl, and that possible autotomy was displayed by C. gracilis according to P. Clover. It seems obvious to me that malacologists who are in a position to study living species of Cypraea in aquaria should be encouraged to investigate this phenomenon in more detail.
Sincerely yours,
Jerry Donohue, Professor of Chemistry
University of Pennsylvania,
Philadelphia, Pa. 19104
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troca bead
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