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Troca
It was on the fourth of these stations that the first Philippine Strombus were found October 23. My partner for the dive was
Betsy Harrison, well known to many of the local members of the Society and a very competent diver. We were working an area of
hard coral bottom, covered with coarse white sand. The depth gauge read 80 feet. The sand was about 2 to 4 inches deep and
contained some rubble. Betsy was industriously fanning near the anchor and I had been up off the bottom scouting around for
possible Philippine Strombus "signs". About two-thirds the way through the dive I heard a scream and turned to see Betsy
swimming toward me as if she had seen Moby Dick himself! Her long hair was streaming out behind her. She showed me an
unbelievable sight; in her hand she held a live Strombus hawaiensis! The shell was not fully adult, but was beautiful. A bit
shocked, I moved off about 30 feet or so and dropped to the bottom to do some fanning. Within two minutes I uncovered a
second specimen, a magnificent shell a bit larger than the first.
Over 60 specimens of P. humphreysi from 14 Viti Levu and Vanua Levu localities were examined, and the color pattern was found
to be highly variable; specimens from Akuilau Island (Nadi Bay) and Nananui-Ra Isld. (Nth.-Viti Levu), were exceptionally
dark, with the brown spots so dense that the milky-white base color was almost obscured. Specimens from the Nadroga and Suva
reefs were generally lighter in color, and the number of either brown or white dorsal zones varied from 0 - 4. Specimens
varied in size from 11mm - 20mm, and were either slender or squat and broad, hardly margined at all or with a pronounced
marginal callus. There should be no difficulty to select specimens from these series of shells which would match the
type-figures of C. humphreysi Gray, P. lutea yaloka Steadman & Cotton, or any other figure illustrating humphreysi in the
major monographs on the Cypraeidae.
Fijian specimens of P. l. humphreysi when compared with specimens of the species from the Great Barrier Reef, Qld.,
Australia, and those from Samoa, do not exhibit any morphological differences which would be worth chronicling. The specimens
of P. l. humphreysi from harbor dredgings of Apia Harbor (Upolu) and Asau Harbor (Savaii), Samoa, together with specimens of
Pustularia cicercula (Linnaeus) and Bistolida pallidula (Gaskoin), are new verified records from this region, and were
obtained by Mr. A. Jackson from Apia.
If we refer to the original descriptions of some Cypraeidae species, e.g. errones, caurica, helvola, poraria and staphylaea,
all established by Linnaeus (Syst. Nat., 1758), we shall realize how detailed Gray's description of humphreysi is in
comparison. Linnaeus' description of these five species consists of from 5 - 11 words and no references to figures are cited.
The elucidation of many Linnaean species has to be usually looked for in the works of revising subsequent authors.
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