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White
Recently, Mrs. Kathleen Mateott of Dromana (Victoria) sent me for examination an albinistic cowrie. It was trawled by a
prawner from Mooloolaba, in about 100 fathoms in the same area. The empty shell (the anterior extremity of which has been
injured, but healed during the animal's life) is 31.4 mm long, breadth 54%, with 26 labial and 21 columellar teeth and 9
denticles on the inner margin of the rather broad though shallow fossula. The right margin is regularly pitted. The shell is
subpellucid, white, unspotted, but shows traces of at least five pale fulvous lateral dots on each margin (which are too pale
to be visible on the photograph). The oblong shell recalls a smooth Staphylaea limacina, but the unquestionable presence of
fulvous lateral spots excludes such a determination. Therefore, I think this unique shell to be a deep water albino of
Erosaria tomlini though its teeth are more numerous than in usual tomlini collected on the shores. This determination,
however, needs confirmation by examination of further specimens which I hope will be discovered by future trawling: but I do
not think that Mrs. Matcott's shell may belong to a species new to science. A dilated albinistic tomlini from Tonga has been
figured by Cernohorsky in H.S.N. 1966, no. 82, p. 3).
S. nucleus is sometimes described in literature as being uniformly yellowish-brown. Freshly collected specimens, however,
have a contrasting dual color combination: a light yellowish-brown base and a khaki-brown dorsum; specimens from Fiji have a
rather dark dorsal color. This species will on many occasion deviate from its "typical" cylindrical shape and inflated
structure, by being either broadly ovate or cylindrically elongate, and with either a humped or partially depressed dorsum.
The purplish S. nucleus has some analogy with S. granulata cassiaui (Burgess, 1965) from the Marquesas, Starbuck & Flint
Islands (C. cassiaui Burgess, 1965, Nautilus, 79 (2): 38-40, plt. 4). These purplish variants may be effected in a similar
manner as melanistic specimens of cowries from various geographical regions. Color characteristics in Cypraeidae, even if of
a constant nature and confined to a certain portion of the shell, do not necessarily indicate a new biological species. A
population of Erosaria helvola (Linnaeus) from Nukuhiva, Marquesas, shows such a constant color-character: the extremities
are pure white instead of the usual shade of violet (10 specimens seen, leg. D. Boust, 1966).
Pathological causes, environmental factors and feeding habits are known to cause color deviation in other molluscan groups,
and may equally well be responsible for extreme color-deviation in Cypraeidae.
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white
Shell
Bracelets
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