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Rapa - rapana
In the photograph the figures 1-4 represent a shell from Perth with the dorsal spots slightly confused; the other specimen
from Perth (not figured) which has been taken alive (female) has the margins bordered dorsally by a broad pale brownish-grey
zone and the dorsal spots very scarce. In both shells the interior is pale pink. The right photograph (fig. 5) represents the
base of a male specimen from Shark Bay in which the outer two-thirds of the base are suffused by rich orange (not well
recognizable in the photograph). In this shell the dorsum, which is almost unspotted, and the interior of the shell are
white.
The formulae of all these specimens indicating the length in mm, the relative breadth in percent of length, and the absolute
number of labial and columellar teeth (the anterior terminal ridge excluded) are as follows
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.
rapa - rapana,sheashells,violet oyster,lambis - lambis natural,lamps,tebia fusos,painted,yellow punaw,hipopos,rapa - rapana
Rapa - rapana barnacle murex treremis pukalet shell hawaiian shells beads capis philippine bursa rubeya frogshell polished shells conus omaria oliva polished shells cyprea arabeca shell-madebelts brownlip melo distrosioanus mitra - mitra.
rapa - rapana
Shell
Bracelets
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