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Hammer shells
Collectors who do not understand Latin and Greek will possibly be interested in the meaning of the scientific names of some
well known cowry species. Most scientific names are Latin, but a few are Greek (marked by an asterisk *) or even other
languages (marked by two asterisks **). Most names can easily be understood, but a few need further explanation. These have
been put in brackets. If we restrict the explanations to living species and well recognizable subspecies of true cowries
(Cypraeidae), and omit the hundreds of varietal names and synonyms of minor importance, we can arrange the scientific names
according to their meaning as follows:
1. Most names refer to the characters of the shells;
There are some general designations, as gracilisgraceful, pericalles*very beautiful, pulchellarather beautiful (not: [a]
small pulchra!), pulchrabeautiful, stolidafoolish, vastacoarse, and venustacharming like Venus. Far more names refer to
the size: immanisvery large, or are descriptions of the general shape: angustatanarrowed, colobastunted,
cylindricacylindrical, depressadepressed, latiorbroader, pyriformispear shaped, teresoblong, tortirostriswith a tortuous
beak. Some names recall peculiarities in morphology: acicularisneedle shaped (referring to the lateral pittings),
edentulanot denticulate, erosaeroded (at the margins), esontropia*keeled within, eunota*with solid dorsum (more probably
than badly compounded by eu*well and notusknown), granulatagranulate, marginalis and marginatamargined, microdon*small
tooth (with small teeth), minoridenssmaller tooth (with smaller teeth), obvelatasurrounded by a sail, semiplotahalf ...
(not intelligible, possibly misspelled for semipolitarather polished), serruliferabearing a small saw (in front of the
columella), sulcidentatawith furrow-like teeth.
If Mr. deVaul knew what repercussions his taking of 37 Murex insularum on a Christmas weekend 1965 would have, I am certain
he would have given up shell collecting right then and switched over to philately. No less than four articles were published
condemning his action, and before Mr. deVaul's enthusiasm for shell collecting turns to sour grapes, we might try to view the
matter more objectively and see if the guilt of "Over-collecting" can be distributed more equally.
The taking of over 1200 specimens of Voluta deshayesi in New Caledonia and several hundred Cypraea coxeni in New Britain is
legend among collectors, and details need not be repeated here. Hugh Cuming and Andrew Garrett, both celebrated Pacific
collectors who somehow avoided making headlines on "Over-collecting" during the last century, were both indiscriminate
collectors. Garrett did not blush when he wrote that he collected 1,500 specimens of Mitra papilio at Raiatea "in a few days"
(1880, Journ. Conch., 3:27).
Dr. Maria Schilder in her little book "Die Kaurischnecke" (Leipzig, 1952, 1-47), gives us an insight on over-collecting; the
figures quoted by the author were extracted from entries in old business ledgers on the export of Cypraea annulus and C.
moneta to West Africa.
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