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GENERAL INFORMATIONS
ABOUT SPECIES AND ISLANDS
In order to have an exhaustive species list I used two very different
books :
Marine
Shells of the Seychelles
Alan Jarret book
The Manual of Living Conidae
Röckel, Korn & Kohn
Both are recent and are a good bibliography
to start with. Unfortunately these two books offer a different list
concerning Seychelles cone shells species. The one from A. Jarret
shows 56 species and Röckel, Korn & Kohn one 80.
I must add the following information to your knowledge : even if
the Marine shells of the Seychelles is the most recent book,
the informations inside were collected a long time ago while Mr
Alan Jarret was living there. He started the book but never finished
it and it's much later, he decided to publish his huge work. At
the time he gathered informations, he had poor informations about
deeper species from 20-60m as scuba was not as common as today.
And I guess he and his mates did not have the chance to get their
hands on all the species there. And that's why there is a huge difference
between the books.
But, Seychelles are unique and may not own all the spcecies listed
in The
Manual of Living Conidae
though. I can take the example of Conus textile, Linné
1758. It seems that this species is not present there... Mr Jarret
did lot listed it and I never collected this usually very common
species... And it shall be present when you read the The
Manual of Living Conidae.
Meaning the right number is not know yet (and may not be since many
more years) but shall be between 60 and 80.
Another important thing
: Seychelles islands like French Polynesia are spread over a wide
territory (115 islands) meaning that islands can be separated by
huge distance. And like French Polynesia, Seychelles Islands may
vary a lot depending of the islands you study. The most known and
visited (dived) islands are Inner
ones (Mahe, Praslin, La Digue,
Curieuse, Silhouette, Ile du Nord, Félicité, Marianne,
Grande Soeur, Petite Soeur, Cousin, Cousine, Frégate, Aride,...)
and they all are made from granite rocks (shown on any local postcards).
In the same time you may have coral islands (still Inner Islands)
like Denis Island (Far & North
of Praslin) and Bird Island.
Much farther, you may reach Outer Islands
wich may be Atolls :
- Coetivy Island
- Amirantes Group : Remire, D'Arros, Desroches, Etoile, Boudeuse,
Marie-Louise & Desnoeufs
- African Banks : Banc Africain & Ile du Sud
- St.-Joseph Atoll
- Poivre Atoll
- Alphonse & St.-Francois Atolls : Alphonse, Bijoutier &
St.-Francois
- Farquar group : Farquar Atoll & Providence Atoll
- Aldabra group ("close" to Madagascar)
: Aldabra Atoll (which
has many endemic species, like birds, fishes,... maybe seashells,
and is a protected Natural Reserve by UNESCO), Cosmoledo
Atoll, Astove & Assomption
We can say that farther islands are less visited and seashells there
were not that much studied, meaning that some species may only live
on these far wild islands and one must reach these quiet spot to
try to gat his hands on all species...
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