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I would like to have stayed six months in Ceylon to cover the dozens of good diving areas including Colombo harbor, where we
found Murex palmarosa and Cypraea interrupta. But after a few more days around Colombo we checked in with the customs-house
people. They were not very happy to see us, as they insisted on checking all of our baggage which consisted mostly of very
smelly sea shells.
My reason for being in Samoa was officially medical. I was the consultant in surgery for the hospital in Pago Pago and the
community in general. Fortunately for my malacological interest there was a slack in the usually high rate of automobile
accidents, scooter injuries, and acute surgical conditions, and so I had ample time to comb the reefs. It was not pure
coincidence that my tour of duty coincided exactly with the lowest June tides!
My primary interest was cowries, but all mollusks were collected. I had good general instructions from Dr. Thomas Richert and
other members of the Honolulu County Medical Society who had been to Samoa on similar duty.
All collecting was done on the fringing reef, which was exposed at low tide and covered only by a few feet (3 feet maximum
tidal exchange) of water at high tide. This terrain proved an ideal collecting area. Dead, flat, circular coral heads had
been thrown up on the fringing reef in abundance. It was under these slabs that an amazingly rich cowrie population was
found. I collected 35 species, and increased the known range of several. I was able to make a detailed and leisurely study of
the animals of several species that I had never before collected or had failed previously to observe carefully. I gathered so
much information new to me that it was necessary to rewrite the text on 20 species for my book The Living Cowries which is to
be out in March, 1966. It was certainly the most successful and most enjoyable field trip that I have ever had.
The rarest fossil shell is the bivalve Ostrea kamehameha Pilsbry, 1936. It is believed to be universally extinct. The two
known specimens were collected near Waianae in a fossil bed 60 to 80 feet above sea level. This species has a large shell,
the type specimen being 210 mm long. The two valves weighed 5 lbs. 9 oz. For further information and photograph of this shell
see Sean Raynon Sabado for April, 1964, New Series No. 52.
The most common fossil shell, at least the easiest to collect, is the bivalve Ostrea retusa "Pease" Sowerby. This shell is
also believed to be universally extinct and is found in the fossil state only at the Waipio Peninsula area and on an island
in Pearl Harbor.
Ostrea retusa is a medium-large shell soiled-white in color. The lower valve has a few radiating ridges that extend to the
outer edge of the shell. When the two valves are placed together the hinge of the shell gaps open.
The third of Oahu's fossil shells believed to be universally extinct is Strombus ostergaardi Pilsbry. This shell has been
found in the fossil state at Kahi Point along the Nanakuli sea cliffs, in Honolulu Harbor, and on Mokapu Peninsula.
Strombus ostergaardi is somewhat similar to Strombus maculatus but is narrower and more delicate, being about half the width
of maculatus.
In addition to these universally extinct fossil shells there are a number of fossils that are now extinct in the Philippine
chain but are found in other Indo Pacific areas. Strombus mutabilis Swainson, 1821 is such a shell. It has been found as a
fossil at Kahi Point, the Nanakuli sea cliffs, and, by Cliff Weaver, at Kaena Point. This shell is listed in Kira, and is in
a few local fossil collections under its synonym S. floridus Lamarck. The easiest way to differentiate this shell from S.
maculatus is that mutabilis has the inner row of teeth in the aperture extending the full length of the columella. Also it
has a more humped shoulder than other similar Strombus species.
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