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Pokalet
With great interest I have read the articles in Sean Raynon Sabado about shelling in various parts of the Pacific. But when
comparing notes I cannot help thinking that the Solomons and more specifically Malaita is an extremely interesting area. Just
limiting myself to the cowries for the last couple of years, has enabled me to collect 50 odd species in an area of only a
couple of square miles. This may sound the more surprising as Prof. Dr. F.A. Schilder in his "Geographical distribution of
cowries" listed about 58 specimen for the whole Solomon islands region. Aside from the guttata I got a couple of years back a
few miles down the coast, and a couple of ventriculus which apparently only occur on the little island Dai, some 25 miles due
North of Malaita, all my cowries have been found in the lagoon right opposite my mission station (Catholic Mission).
Especially this year during the very low tides in July and August, shelling has been very exciting, as quite a number of new
species turned up which I hadn't seen before.
Malaita, one of the main islands of the Solomons, although not the biggest, is certainly the most densely populated one of
the group, having almost half of the entire population. On the northeast coast is a lagoon approximately 20 miles long and 1
- 2 miles wide, in which there are some 60 artificial islands, built by the local people on the reefs. Ataa is near the
southern end of the Lau lagoon. Incidentally, Ataa is a somewhat out-of-the-way place, as the nearest air-strip and post
office are 100 miles away by sea... Nobody has ever collected shells here in the past, but since I became interested in them
in 1960, shelling has become a kind of community project. Almost every day some person or other will show me shells, but the
school kids are really the experts in shell collecting. At present, they don't bother anymore to pick up common ones; they go
for the less common and rare ones, and even the very tiny ones don't escape their attention. I am glad to say that the kids
really benefit most by what they find, as I am now building a school for them of permanent material, which I certainly could
not erect otherwise, for lack of funds.
Last year's yield was quite interesting, but this year's was fantastic. The most common cowries are found anywhere in the
lagoon, such as C. moneta, annulus, lynx, arabica, erosa, errones, chrysostoma, caputserpentis, and tigris. Some species are
fairly-common, although they don't seem to be living in colonies; vitellus, eglantina, caurica, carneola, isabella. Others
are rather rare, viz. mauritiana, depressa and talpa and are only found occasionally. And mappa, argus and testudinaria are
really scarce.
The original description of this lovely new Strombus appeared in Indo-Pacific Mollusca in April, 1965, Vol. 1, No. 6, pp.
397, 398. Apparently it is found only off the coast of Somalia, East Africa, and is rare even in its type-locality. We are
illustrating it here in the hopes that readers may discover that they have a specimen of S. oldi in their collection. Should
this be the case, please notify Dr. William Emerson, Dept. Of Living Invertebrates, American Museum of Natural History, New
York 24, New York who is anxious to obtain more collecting and locality data on this obscure species. The following "Remarks"
are reproduced from his original description.
"Although the fauna of the Somalian coast is not well known, it seems remarkable that this very distinctive species has not
been previously discovered. it was first brought to light by my associate, Mr. William E. Old, Jr., who was curating small
collection of marine mollusks that as labeled '50 miles north to 60 miles south of Obbia, Italian Somaliland {Republic of
Somalia}, East Africa, November 21, 1956.' Recently, other specimens have been found near Mogadishu {Mogadiscio}. One of
these was kindly forwarded by Mrs. Orville R. Davis for examination.
"Of the known species of Strombus, the shell of S. oldi most closely resembles Strombus (Tricornis) sinuatus Humphrey, 1786,
but it lacks the 3 or 4 tongue-like blades on the upper end of the outer lip and a thickened outer lip. In spire angle and
nodulation and in the spiral ornamentation of the shell, S. oldi closely resembles Lambis (Millepes) digitata (Perry), 1811,
From-the Indian Ocean, but lacks the strong labial and parietal wall ornamentation of that Lambis. This new species is
characterized by the wing-like projection on the upper end of the outer lip, by the relatively high, noduled spire, by the
strong, rounded cords on the back of the outer lip, by the dark-brown blotches within the smoothish aperture, and by the rich
chestnut coloring of the outer shell.
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