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White rose
White rose The rather rare allied cowry Pellasinia deflexa (Sowerby 1832), was first collected by Mr. Neville M. Jennings in North Queensland in December, 1967. Since then other specimens have been collected offering Neville the opportunity to study and photograph this interesting group. The shells range from about 15mm to nearly 25mm in length. There is considerable color variation with the shells ranging from white through shades of blue to an almost violet hue with some shades of rose and light brown - (See photo 1, 2 & 3... [right].) The mantle is nearly transparent with tinges of color along the fringes and in the tentacles. (see photo 1... [right].)
A more common Indo-Pacific allied cowry, Volva brevirostris, (Photo 4... [right]), is also collected in the North Queensland area with a near record size of 2-1/4" length being recorded. V. birostris is known from Japan and other areas. It is usually a dark brown color.
A sudden trip Down Under to Fiji, New Zealand and Australia came my lucky way recently. What a time I've had sight-seeing, making friends and especially shell collecting!
At the end of August seven of us left for Sydney to attend the 6th World Orchid Conference. Our first stop was at Nandi, Fiji, where we landed in the very cool A.M. – 4: 15 to be exact. We were met by an Indian driver who took us over a roller coaster washboard road to the small island of Yanuca.
Yanuca Island (pronounced Yanutha) has a horseshoe-shaped white sand beach of about six miles and the shelling seems unlimited. It's a favorite sport of the hotel guests and you can even rent shoes to shell in. A week before we arrived, one guest had found a live Golden Cowry [Cypraea aurantium] during a low tide and the hotel gave a real swinging party to celebrate.
As the sun came up I changed into beach clothes and went shelling. It was high tide but even so in fifteen minutes I picked up beach specimen of Cypraea moneta, C. cylindrica and C. carneola. Also Conus generalis, C. ebraeus, C. pulicarius, an unidentified Terebra, good Strombus maculatus, Oliva erythrostoma, black rose-mouthed Murex, countless bivalves including Cardium, also specimens of Natica and Turbo.
White rose These figures prove that the Australian populations do not excel in any way: shells from the last-named three areas are broad, but this character occurs also in the four populations from the Seychelles. The size of the shells from Broome is also almost reached in Mozambique nor do the dentition, dorsal and lateral markings, or spire blotch (see the figure) show differences.
Therefore the large, broad, callous westralis is not a geographical subspecies spreading along the whole Northwest coast of Australia, but only a local variant restricted to Broome: Kalnins' shells from Barrow I. agree with those from the Seychelles.
I read with interest Professor F. A. Schilder's article in the November issue of the Sean Raynon Sabado entitled "The Size of Erosaria ocellata (Linnaeus)." In a similar article published in - The Cowry, Volume 1, Number 8, Professor Schilder describes a study of the size of Erosaria turdus (Lamarck). The limits of usual specimens (i.e. of two-thirds of the specimens approaching the median[*]) for these two species in the Karachi area was given as follows: E. ocellata (26 - 31 mm.); E. turdus (29 - 39 mm.). While these figures conform rather closely to my study of 385 specimens of E. turdus winckworthi and 181 specimens of E. ocellata found in the vicinity of Karachi, it might be of interest to note that local differences in size occur within this general area. Photos - uncredited
[E. turdus, above; E. ocellata, below]
[*- This can be confusing: In some articles, the mean is stated; in others, the median. These are two different statistics which do not have the same value in a given population unless its distribution is Gaussian, or "normal," which rarely occurs. - Bob Dayle]
From Karachi the beach extends westward about 25 miles along the Arabian Sea before turning north. About 15 miles west of Karachi there is an open beach with large boulders jutting from the sand. At low tides during certain periods of the monsoon small pools form in the sand and both E. ocellata and E. turdus are found in these pools, sometimes half-buried in the sand. This is the only place I have ever seen sea shells frequent this type of habitat. The specimens found here are considerably larger than those found in other areas around Karachi. In one afternoon, we collected 30 specimens of giant E. turdus (see top, picture below) most of them measuring about 2 inches, or from 45 to 51 mm. Since roughly 20 per cent of the specimens used in my study come from this locality the average size E. turdus turned out to be 36 mm. compared to 33 mm. as reported by Professor Schilder, and the limits of usual specimens ranged from 31 to 42 mm. The E. ocellata (see bottom picture below) found in this area are also unusually large. Without including these giants, my figures coincide very closely to those of Professor Schilder.
In the accompanying photographs I have pictured a pair of E. turdus, the larger of which is 51.5 mm. and a pair of E. ocellata, the larger of which is 41.5 mm. I would be interested in knowing if the latter is a world record. In the October, 1964 issue of the Sean Raynon Sabado the world record size for E. ocellata was listed as 36 mm.
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white rose
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