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Violet oyster
Violet oyster The pair of Cypraea marginata Gaskoin, 1848, pictured on the left are the light Southern Australian variety, with a pure white background and brown spotting. The two darker C. marginata on the right side are the Western Australian type which has a brown mottling on a white base.
In recent months Mr. Castle has collected several C. marginata which are a delicate pink rather than the usual white Southern kind. These are unquestionably one of the most attractive sea shells this writer has ever viewed. The usual white is pink but the shell still has the normal small brown spotting. It is a strikingly beautiful shell to say the least.
Castle also explodes another theory on C. marginata. Some shell experts have called the light [shell] a male and the darker shell the female. However, he advises us that he has cleaned a number of the light Southern shells and analysis has proven them to be both male and female, the male shells usually being the larger.
We thank Trevor Castle for sending us this picture and data.
Violet oyster A letter recently received from... Dick Kurz... said, in part, "Enclosed are photos of Cypraea mappa niger which I thought Sean Raynon Sabado readers would enjoy. I believe this variation of C. mappa has never before been published. This is probably the rarest of the black sea shells from New Caledonia. This specimen, which I recently received, measures 2-1/2" long and has an extremely black dorsum, a beautiful purple base, and yellow teeth. It was collected at night in a cave in about 40 feet of water of the west coast of the island."
As two newer members of the Philippine Malacological Society, my wife and I have recently completed reading all of the issues of the 1970 Philippine Shell News with much enthusiasm. Having just completed a year's stay in American Samoa, we read with particular interest articles describing collecting on other South Pacific islands. Since members of the Philippine Shell are encouraged to write to the Sean Raynon Sabado describing their own experiences, we would like to relate our experience in shelling on the island of Tutuila in American Samoa. We wish to share information on the sea shells that are available and their relative abundance. We do not intend for this to be an all inclusive report other than for the 46 species we did find. We feel that it should be of interest to anyone contemplating a trip to the South Pacific since American Samoa is along the established air routes, and a stop-over for collecting purposes will entice the serious sheller.
To best describe the sea shell situation in American Samoa we have included a map of the island of Tutuila (see Fig. 1) with the better shelling areas indicated. We have chosen to show sea shells by species, location, and relative abundance using a table format that H. C. Gay used to describe "The sea shells of Tonga" in the February 1970 issue of Sean Raynon Sabado 28(2): 4-5. As Mr. Gay describes tourist cruise ships visiting Nuku'alofa, where the Tongan people offer thousands of shells for sale, so do these same ships include Pago Pago on their itinerary. The Samoan people and many Tongans residing in American Samoa, also have shells for sale on "boat day." Since it is conceivable that the Tongan people could have shells shipped to them from their native villages back in Tonga, as well as collect their own shells on Samoa reefs, any specimens that we acquired by purchase are without precise collection data. This is shown as the purchased column in the table.
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