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Shell hawaiian
After a few more fish were caught we began our six hour homeward journey. During this return trip I started cleaning the
remainder of my fish, feeling through each length of gut and each gut sack. Suddenly I felt something hard and round. I slit
open a section of gut forward of the stomach and there lay a beautiful and still live Cypraea lutea humphreysii measuring 20
mm. It was a good size specimen and in perfect condition. I immediately washed it off with salt water and stowed it away.
It now resides in my shell cabinet alongside my only other humphreysii. My day was complete
Mr. A. A. J. Bannah of Brisbane (Queensland) has sent me, for examination, two adult shells of Palmadusta saulae Gaskoin,
which totally lack the usual dorsal blotch: they have been collected, in July 1960, by diving in 12 fathoms off Morris Island
in the Coral Sea. Mr. Bannah told me that "this unusual form of saulae seems to be endemic in the Morris Island region."
The formula (length in mm, relative breadth, number of labial and columellar teeth) of the two shells is 21 (58) 23:16 and 22
(58) 19: 17; both are very pale flesh color (not pellucid) with tiny fulvous specks, which are scattered in the smaller
shell, but arranged in six transversal rows in the figured larger shell (as in the sub-adult shell of saulae siasiensis Cate
1960, Veliger 3, pl. 5, fig. 6): the terminal rows recall those in P. ziczac Linnaeus. The very pale fulvous lateral spots
extend across the white base almost as far as to the teeth the interstices of which are white, while the extremities are very
pale orange both dorsally and within the outlets.
Mauritia maculifera Schilder is widely distributed in the Pacific Ocean, but it had not yet been collected in the Indian
Ocean* as had its ally M. depressa Gray which occurs in both oceans (see Schilder 1965, Veliger 7:177).
Recently, however, Mr. W.O. Cernohorsky (Vatukoula, Fiji) has sent me, on loan, a shell from his collection which had been
collected alive at low tide in a small pocket of live coral on Frigate Island, Seychelles, by the resident Mrs. Maureen
Forster. This shell undoubtedly belongs to maculifera, as in comparison with depressa the pale dorsal lacunae and the
blackish lateral spots are larger, the columellar teeth are less coarse and more numerous, and the central columellar teeth
are produced as far as to the very distinct purplish grey central blotch of the inner lip. Its size of 46.2 mm is just below
the limits of the usual length of maculifera, i.e. the size of two thirds of the specimens approaching the mean, which range
from 48 to 68 mm (in Philippines from 54 to 76 mm, in the remaining Pacific from 44 to 58 mm). Therefore it is much larger
than depressa two thirds of which range, in each ocean, from 30 to 40 mm only.
I really hit the jackpot Saturday at Kaanapali. We were diving in our Cypraea area and not having much luck but the water was
clear. We were enjoying ourselves anyway. The dive was about three-quarters over and I had just found a small C. leviathan
and was busily looking for its mate. The closest coral was a large head on the side of a small hill. I had just loosened this
coral and was about to turn it over when Dean Brown came over to give me a hand. It seems that Dean has a talent for smelling
shells under my rocks so I made a mental note to myself to grab fast. We got the coral over and the water was beginning to
clear when I spotted a shell trying to dig itself into the sand and rubble that was under the coral. Well, I set my hook down
fast and out came a Harpa amouretta.*
After this I had a mild case of narcosis and went about knocking over coral heads indiscriminately. As luck would have it, I
came across a pair of nice C. sulcidentata and on the next coral [head,] a talpa. Still feeling drunk, I went after a coral
head the size of a Volkswagen. I got it so it would move and called Joe Kern over to give me a hand turning it over. On the
first try we did not get it so I put the bar under again and gave a lift. Crack! Out came a two piece shell bar. And that put
an end to shelling for that day.
* Editor: Harpa amouretta is extremely rare in Philippines.
Other details which might be of interest are: at that same spot, this type of Spondylus exists in a colony approximately 20
to 30 specimens, with some of them reaching up to 45/50 cms in length, but so well anchored to the coral as to be impossible
to remove them. The spot is situated approximately half way between the beach and the reefs which are only half a mile apart,
and at these two ends the water is shallow with white sand and coral bottom.
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