|
|
Moonshell white
The abundance or rarity of molluscan species is not governed so much by indiscriminate collecting as by climatic conditions,
salinity, food supply, ratio of reproduction to survival and other ecological requirements. We can hardly be blamed for the
disappearance of the Therapsid reptiles gigantosaurus, brontosaurus or triceratops, or early mammals like the planetheterium
or taeniolabis. I am gratified to know that collectors cannot be held responsible for the disappearance from the evolutionary
cycle of the Mid-Tertiary sinistral species Conus adversarius Conrad. Species in our time appear to be either in ascension or
declination, and those species which are dwindling in numbers despite a struggle for survival, will ultimately die out even
without our assistance.
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.
moonshell white,strombus ovula,pawa,frogshell,melo shell,spondylus barbatus,mello,puka shell,casis bandatum,moonshell white
Moonshell white conus literatus shells necklace murex torrifactus trocca pectin nobiles frog shell pukalet murex borneous vertagos exporters shell accessories troca male capis shells tuna zulcosa toribellum coco shells notorium pillary.
moonshell white
Shell
Bracelets
|
