General Articles
** Seashell Collecting on a Shrimp Boat - Published : Apr 06, 2004
I've "worked" on a shrimp boat as a striker (deck hand) every chance I get. I say "work", because although at times the work is very physical and all of my 127 pounds are needed to haul in the lines that pull the nets in , it's very different from my day-job as a bookkeeper for a private elementary school. It's wonderful being out on the ocean long before dawn and each time we go out is different. Sometimes the ocean is flat like a lake. Other times
** Collecting "Freak" Cone Shells - Published : Feb 17, 2004
In my collections of conus I have quite a few "freak" specimens. I consider freak specimens to be those with characteristics that are not comparable with typical specimens. This could be in the form of a strange new pattern or color, as well as obvious growth defects both natural and/or with man-made aspects ( like pollution ). In terms of pattern or color, I dont think a shell should be specifically labeled a freak, unless the pattern is due to a growth flaw or other defect. For example...... this picture of a beautiful large 115mm Conus marmoreus has a particularly beautiful and odd pattern, but I would not call it a freak! I think of this as more of a color/pattern variant rather than a freak pattern.
** Where are the Tahitian seashells hiding ? - Published : Jan 14, 2004
I decided to write this article, due to my anger over the disappearance of our seashells... A strange phenomenon must have happened here, but which one ? Of course, everywhere around the world, in any place, shells are less abundant than before. When I first came here in August 2002, I could find regular species, even if the locals and the local collectors said that shells were now not so easy to find. It seems that 2003 was fine too, then 2004, was the year of the real disparition of our seashells...
** Marie-Galante Cowries - Published : Jun 24, 2003
Marie-Galante is a very pleasant island of the West Indies. It's just at the South-East of Guadalupe. I've been living there for 6 months and I came back with some cowries. I found the first surinamensis ever found there. It's not in good condition (found beach of course) but it measures 38 mm which is remarkable for this species. Here it seems to live in very deep waters on the Caribbean side coast. VERY RARE (also everywhere else in the west Indies)...
** Trip To Marco Island (Florida) - Published : May 13, 2003
Just a week ago i came back from Marco Island Florida and i collected over 100 shells. Iall found them while snorkeling from 3 to 5 feet of water and most of them are gem. I found : 7 alphabet cones (Conus spurius 65mm-26mm), 33 fighting conchs (Strombus alatus 127mm-26mm),
** Lissenung Island, New Ireland - a paradise for shell lovers - Published : May 13, 2003
The Lissenung Island Resort near Kavieng, New Ireland, Papua New Guinea is a place every shell collector would keep as a secret. On a small island, a few hundred metres across, a resort was built and is run by our friend Dietmar Amon, an experienced dive instructor and one of the nicest people I know. He started picking up dead shells a few years ago and has developed a great skills in finding shells. Dietmar and his team welcome shell collectors on their island. You have to be willing to behave
** Conus pennaceus from Seychelles Archipelago - Published : Apr 23, 2003
It is the second time I am looking for cone shells in Seychelles archipelago. This time i was able to catch three new species : Conus aulicus, Conus pennaceus & Conus gubernator.Conus pennaceus is a rare shell there. I found only two of them. They were laying under medium pieces of dead corals. I found them in 2-4 meters deep. It is a really nice shell and very different from C. episcopatus & C. aulicus. The two specimens are different and GEM. As on dealers lists and in collections C. pennaceus never comes from this locality, I wanted to share with you the pictures of this particular & nice species.
** Trip To New Caledonia - Published : Feb 13, 2003
During september 2003, I had the chance to fly from Tahiti to New Caledonia Island, a wonderful shell collecting spot. This was my first trip there, on the amazing island. I was hosted by a couple of friends, also collectors, I met online and they were really nice with me, taking me to their favourite shelling spots. Of course, I will not mention any spot to preserve them from overcollecting. First of all, the island. the first impression, excepted the cold at this part of the year, is what a wide island... you can drive for hours without seeing anybody. This a real wild country. Of course most of the people there live near the main city of Noumea. Another surprising thing is the diversity of the landscapes and so of the shores which creates many very different habitats. That one of the reason why New Caledonia have so many very local endemic seashells.
** Conus boui Da Motta, 1988 Two species under the same name ? - Published : Feb 12, 2003
First, I would like to come back on a few points concerning this lovely specie named "recently" as Conus boui (from Mr Bou's name) by Mr Da Motta in 1988 : This specie seems to be endemic from Martinique island (Caribbean). Never any other specimen were found elsewhere in the Caribbean (and of course in the world). It's Habitat is around 25-35m usually, but it can be found sometimes in 10m depth. It seems to be like C. daucus a worm-killer species. It is a small shell wich can reach 40mm though.
** Sailing down to the Grenadines - Published : Nov 20, 2002
We started the cruise in the harbor of Marin in Martinique. Then, we went south toward St. Lucia island where we staid a night in Soufirère bay. After this stop, we went more south to spend a day in Admiratly bay in Bequia. I did not find any shell in this bay, during daytime and even during night snorkeling. The next day we went to Mustique. Here also i did not find many things, only a few Oliva shells. Then, we left Mustique and went down to Union island. I found during daytime, while snorkeling a few very old Conus cedonulli Linnaeus, 1767 beached where waves breaks on the beach side... that excited me !! Finally the first evidence of the presence of this wonderful species...
** Keppel Island Blessings - Published : Aug 20, 2002
The weekend was shaping up well for our church youth camp. The weather was calm with a light northerly wind blowing; however the tides were only about 0.9m, so I wasn't expecting to find any shells at all. We decided to trek across the island to Monkey Point on the Southern end of Great Keppel Island. Around 1pm on Friday afternoon about seven teenagers, my wife and I set off. To our surprise when we reached the southern end of the Island the water was crystal clear and calm as a millpond. As we walked across to Monkey Point I saw that the tide was far to high to turn rocks so we jumped in the water instead, casually snorkeling across the rocks we were unaware of the surprises that awaited us.
** A new Cypraea testudinaria from northern New-Caledonia ? - Published : Jul 16, 2002
The Chelycypraea group (one species, C. testudinaria) can clearly be linked with the Trona group (one species, C. stercoraria), for instance, thanks to some features of the shell. Amongst those features, one may notice the strange shape of the fossula which is almost similar in both group. Back in 2000, I found, during my stay in New-Caledonia, an interesting shell which I thought to be an ordinary C. testudinaria (Bélep Islets, Northern N-C). However, apart from its huge h
** Conus regius & Conus cedonulli feedings habits - Published : Dec 18, 2001
I had the chance to observe many Conus regius Gmelin, 1791 & Conus dominicanus Hwass, 1792 in my aquarium and manage to find out what this shells feed on. Conus regius and Conus dominicanus (Grenadines Islands) are both worm killers. They both feed on the carribean "fire worm" Hermodice carunculata (picture below). The worms have usually three different colors : gree, orange or red. This could partially explain the many variations in color of Conus regius.
** Conus daucus and related species variations from Martinique - Published : Sep 11, 2001
I met a collector, specialized in conidae from Caribbean. In fact, he is a specialist of the C. daucus complex. I was able to take a few shots from his personal collection. I did not have the time to take a shot of every shell, so excuse me for the average pictures quality.
** Senegal Cone Shells - Published : Jul 24, 2001
This article shows cones I have founded during a two years stay in Senegal (1990-1992). It is a tentative to illustrate as accurately as possible these species and to show the associate biota’s. For identification it use the help of the " Les cônes du Sénégal " publication by Marcel PIN and K.D. LEUNG TACK, public
** Variations of Cypraea Erosaria acicularis from Martinique (French Caribbean) - Published : Feb 07, 2001
have been collected Martinique cowries since 7 months now. Of course Caribbean Sea is not THE spot to look out for this family. The Cypraeidae family is very poorly represented there. We can find only main four species : - the very common Cypraea cinerea (Gemlin, 1791) (Now splited in several sp. and ssp. like "brasilensis") - the common Cypraea acicularis (Gemlin, 1791) - the very uncomon Cypraea zebra (Linné, 1758) - the very rare Cypraea surinamensis (Perry, 1811)
** A wonderful specimen of Conus Regius "citrinus" - Published : Nov 28, 2000
The sunday 22th (2001), in la Martinique island (french caribbean), we had a really fantastic wether. Usually this is the month of those ling and huge rains... Today not ! A top shiny day with no cloud and no wind !! Incredible. We went with friends (they are not collectors) swimming on a small beach in north caribbean sea, which is not at all frequented by tourists. As we arrived by 11h00 in the morning and we went straight in the sea. All of us (6) started to go to the left side of the beach. We saw a few minutes later some Strombus specimens (all kinds). We found also a few fresh dead Cypraea cinerea and pomum Murex.
** Miters, collectors forgotten seashells - Published : Jul 20, 2000
This article is not a scientific one. It is an amateur work and is exclusively built with my collection material. It is probable, if not sure, that the Miters specialists will find some errors. For instance, the aim is not to review all the living Miters nor to study them. This is not my intend. I only am a collector and I prefer to let this duty to the specialists. If my choice is to write this article, it is because I love this beautiful shells family, and my aim is to share this passion with other collectors. For an easiest pictures understanding you can find hereby the different abbreviations for the sub families of the genus Mitridae :
** Seven days trip to Venezuela - Published : Jun 20, 2000
As we were staying since end of february in la Martinique Island (french caribbean), we decided to go give a visit to our friends in Venezuela in june 2001.They live in Puerto la Cruz, near Barcelona, 30 minutes far from Caracas by plane (5 hours by car).We staid 2 days at Puerto la Cruz in order to visit the islands next to Puerto la Cruz, then went south to stay 3 days in an old hacienda in a cacao plantation. If you go to Venezuela do not miss that !!
** Marginelles - Published : Feb 16, 2000
Cette page n'a aucune prétention scientifique . Elle est le résultat d'une tentative de compilation de quelques rares documents de vulgarisation traitant du sujet. Ma démarche est plus d'ouvrir une rubrique servant de prétexte à des échanges aussi bien d'informations que de spécimens , échanges que je souhaite fructueux et dénués d'esprit mercantile. Je souhaite par ce vecteur pouvoir contribuer à animer un peu le milieu des collectionneurs de marginelles (qu'ils soient " éclairés " ou " esthèt
** A Live Cypraea surinamensis - Published : Feb 09, 2000
When Thomas Honker – a professional collector with almost 20 years of diving experience off the Florida coast – asked me a year ago if I might be interested in joining him on a diving-shelling trip to some of his favorite spots, I answered "Yes." Who wouldn't? Finally, one partly cloudy Saturday morning we met at Delray Beach. Tom felt that the poor water visibility and the rough sea wouldn't make a dive worthwhile. "Perhaps today we'll find a live C
** Cowries of southern Sri Lanka - Published : Jan 05, 2000
This site shows the results of our research carried out along the South coast of Sri Lanka between March 1998 and January 2000. The shells shown here all come from beaches and reefs between Galle and Tangalla. They were collected by local Singhalese fishermen, women and children. Most shells belong to varieties found only in the described area and are are much different from the typical forms of the respective species. To contact us, click here. Your comments are most welcome.
** Cypraea (Luria) lurida lurida in Aquarium - Published : Jan 13, 1999
I wanted to try to have some living cowries in an aquarium. As I live in south of France i decided to catch mediterranean cowries. So the first step is... get my hands on some of these shells... I asked around me and nobody could exactly tell me where this species could hide during daytime. My cousin while scuba found many empty shells (with drilled hole) in many different places, a few Cypraea spurca and only one Cypraea pyrum. I tried with friends to snorkle and started to turn rocks and look in the grass fields. But no specimen were found... I had the chance to find an empty fresh dead specimen (with the drilled hole) under a rock though. This was during august 1999.
** Collecting in The Solomons - Published : Jun 15, 1996
If you are like me, you find it disappointing to read about a shell trip to a wonderful sounding marine area, only to find it is 90% about the country, and the other 10% is about all the money cowries or tulip shells that were found. I want to use my 90% to tell you about the shells I found -- those that would appeal to me, and hopefully to you.
