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Shell leis
I had the opportunity recently to examine several cowries from the collection of Mrs. M. Coppell, Rarotonga. These shells
were collected during May and June, 1966, at Pukapuka Atoll (or Danger I.), Northern Cook group, by the resident school
teacher Mr. Itipouana Tautua. The Pukapuka Atoll is triangular in arrangement, and consists of 3 small Islands placed near
the corners of the triangular fringing reef; only the northernmost, Wale Island, is inhabited.
Among the material examined was a purple-colored specimen of Staphylaea nucleus (Linnaeus). This variant had a rose-purple
dorsum, dark purple ridges and light violet nodules; this color-arrangement ceases at the margins. The base is the usual
yellow-brown with basal ridges bordered with reddish-brown; the margins are rounded and the general shape of the shell
deviates as much or as little from normal S. nucleus as S. nucleus populations differ from different geographic regions. The
dimensions of the variant were L: 19.7 mm, W: 10.9 mm, LT: 23, CT: 19. The other specimens of S. nucleus from Pukapauka are
of normal color and the largest specimen measured L: 17.4 mm, W: 10.0 mm, LT: 25, CT: 17. According to Mrs. Coppell (in
litt.), three Pukapuka students collected the purple variant on previous occasions together with normal colored S. nucleus on
the reef facing the northern side of Wale Island.
The large cowrie Umbilia hesitata (Iredale) is rather frequent in deep waters around the Bass Strait, i.e., in northern
Tasmania and in Victoria, reaching the most southern area of New South Wales from Twofold Bay to Montagu Island. Farther
north in New South Wales the species becomes much rarer, and the specimens are distinctly smaller. So far as I know, only
five shells have been collected in the northern area, viz. at Ulladulla (coll. Schilder, ex coll. W. O. Cernohorsky), Nowra
(the smallest known shells of 54 and 56 mm: coll. Schilder, ex coll. W. Krause), Wollongong (Angas 1867), and Port Stephens
(Beddome 1898: coll. J. R. Le Brockton Tomlin).
Recently, Mr. S. R. Shadlow (Mermaid Beach, Qld.) has sent me, for examination, a live shell dredged from 96 fathoms off
Point Lookout (Stradbroke Island, which belongs to Queensland). The shell figured above (figs. 3-5) is full grown, 70 mm
long, white, with very pale fulvous dorsal spots mostly arranged along the purplish-grey dorsal line, and chestnut lateral
spots. The extremities are suffused dorsally with rich greyish brown.
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shell leis
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