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Puka shell jewelry and accessory
According to the account, Mrs. Alice Mullen and Mrs. Elizabeth Johnson, whose husbands work for an oil company on the Island
of Aruba, were vacationing on the northern coast of Venezuela.
While out shelling in shallow water, they found two live brown-speckled Mouse Cowries. They promptly placed the shells in a
jar of alcohol and air-mailed them to Tucker Abbott at the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia.
Dr. Abbott is presently studying the soft parts and has this to say about the history of C. mus: "The Mouse Cowrie was
brought to museums in large quantities via slave traders who visited Venezuelan ports during the 1800's, but none have been
collected alive for over 100 years." Their commercial value amounts to only $15-$20 apiece.
Another lost species has been "zero'd in on."
TALLAHASSEE Florida's King Conch {Representative Bernie Papy, Jr.} used the dying moments of the legislature to throw a
protective legal arm around Florida's Queen Conch.
As for the small and tiny cowries, the main collecting area is on the reefs near the outer edge of the lagoon near the open
sea. At low tides a long stretch of reef falls dry (dry water, the locals call it) and it is possible to walk there without
getting wet feet. Plenty of stones are scattered around, under which many kinds of cowries have been found, as well as a
variety of other shells. The first cowries discovered here were labrolineata, kieneri and rhinoceros, but gradually
staphylaea, felina, helvola and asellus came to light. Further exploration revealed the tiny minoridens and an odd fimbriata,
both very difficult to find as they are so small and well camouflaged and the very attractive cribraria, which the kids
christened "madai." Some rather small "madai" turned up which appeared to be somewhat different from the other cribraria, and
experts have identified them now as being catholicorum. They are quite rare, as one may find just one among some 15-20
cribraria, which by no means are common either. Some nucleus, a couple of teres and an old punctata (very small) were also
found in this general area on the edge of the lagoon. And this year in August, a kid of about 10 year[s old] started to smash
soft coral heads, and discovered poraria with a very dark base.
A second collecting area which has been completely overlooked until recently is a small bay, almost wholly surrounded by
hills, and partly cut off from the sea by a little natural island. Even when the wind sweeps through the lagoon and the sea
gets rough, the little bay remains quiet and peaceful. The greatest depth at low tides is only a few feet, one fathom at the
most. I used to get the ecological variety of coxeni (long and slender, without swollen margins) from South Malaita, but when
the weather got somewhat rough in August, people started to investigate the little bay, and came up with a fair number of the
Malaita variety of coxeni. And in company of coxeni, they found also rather large punctata and some microdon granum, in a
proportion of just one each for 10 - 15 coxeni. Incidentally, the three last species seem to prefer very quiet water, and it
would appear that they mainly feed on weeds which are plentiful in the little bay. Some coxeni have a greenish coloring,
especially when the animal is still in it.
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