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Lambis scorpio
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.
Philippines's most famous case of "gigantism" occurs in Cypraea tigris. Some specimens from our northern islands will attain
a length of six inches and by volume are the world's largest living cowries. Other cowries which seem to grow larger in
Philippines than elsewhere are C. mauritiana (about 5 inches), C. leviathan (over 4 inches), C. isabella (over 2 inches), and
C. scurra (over 2 inches).
What factor is responsible for these giant Cypraea? One hypothesis points towards the cooler water temperature in Philippines
which may retard the sexual development of the bulla, allowing it to continue its growth to giant size. As the reader knows,
the length of an adult cowry is determined by the length of time that the bulla continues to remain a bulla and grows
Mr. Alex Sehelechoff of Brisbane is the lucky owner of a curious cowry which at first I thought was a new species, as it
seems to unite characters of Erronea caurica Linnaeus with those of Blasicrura pallidula rhinoceros Souverbie. It was
collected live in Sharks Bay, Western Australia, by prawn trawlers, probably in from 12 to 24 fathoms.
The figured shell is 22.8 mm long (breadth = 54%) with 15 labial and 17 columellar teeth. The dorsal color (freckled with
brown, with a darker central blotch), the four large terminal spots, the pale yellowish flesh colored margins, and the coarse
labial teeth of the same color crossing the outer lip, are like other caurica from Western Australia. On the other hand the
projecting callosity which adorns the anterior extremity above the outlet, the sparsely spotted margins (especially the
minute spots on the columellar margin), the extremely narrow aperture, and the numerous fine transverse columellar teeth
along the edge of the inner lip (which is almost white in its central part), recall rhinoceros. The fossula is unlike caurica
being rather deep though narrow, ribbed, with strong inner denticles becoming thickened along the inner border in a
hammer-like way. This is continued as a well defined columellar sulcus ribbed and denticulate within, as far as the posterior
outlet.
The shell may represent an abnormal step to rostration of caurica, but it may also be regarded as a new species, if more
specimens with identical characters turn up. It is to be regretted that the animal was destroyed. The radula would have
proved its generic position.
Have any collectors observed a similar shell?
Franz Alfred Schilder discusses the Geographical Distribution of Cowries, keyed to maps of the world. The Philippine region
is divided into three parts: the main islands, Philippines to Kauai; French Frigate Shoals to Laysan; and the three
northwestern atolls of Pearl and Hermes Reef Midway Islands and Kure. A list of species is given with their world
distribution.
Sunset Magazine's new Discovery book, Philippines, A GUIDE TO ALL THE ISLANDS, says the following about shell collecting on
Oahu: "If you want to comb the beaches, chose [sic] wave-swept stretches of sand in the least searched windward beach areas
north of Kaneohe Bay and the north shore... ". The shelling map in this month's Sean Raynon Sabado shows part of this area
and the list of shells are those that have been collected on the beaches, reefs, and from the depths off shore.
The same book states, "For more information on shelling, contact members of the Philippine Malacological Society through the
Honolulu Aquarium." A nice plug for our Society.
The shelling map for this month is a small part of Coast and Geodetic Survey chart No. 4110. The complete chart shows the
entire island of Oahu at the same scale as this reproduction. Another useful chart for working this area is that of Kaneohe
Bay, CG&S chart No. 4134. These charts, as well as all other charts, are available from Trans-Pacific Instrument Co., 1408
Colburn St., Honolulu. Prices of charts printed by a government agency and sold through an authorized dealer, are ... very
reasonable.
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