Mollusks

Shell of the Week: The Knobbed Triton

Also known as the Knobbly Triton, Gutturnium muricinum, is one among many triton species (family Cymatiidae) found along the east coast of Florida and the Florida Keys. (The genus Gutturnium is *monotypic*, i.e., it includes only one species.) The Knobbed Triton is also present in the southwestern Gulf of Mexico throughout the Caribbean south to Brazil. They can grow up to 75 mm (about three inches). Triton snails have larvae that spend weeks, sometimes months, living in open water. The protocon

The Thrush Cowrie Rides Again!

Another occurrence of the non-native Thrush Cowrie, Naria turdus, in Palm Beach County, this time by Trent Gamble, who stumbled on the shell on the beach in Boca Raton, about a mile north of Boca Inlet. Thanks to Bruce Haver, who photographed the shell, and Don Swenson, who made the connection with Bruce and Trent possible. The Thrush Cowrie was first reported in Florida last month, in paper co-authored by Anton Oleinik, José H. Leal, Anne Dupont, Nuch Uthairat. Read the paper here.#nariaturdus

Shell of the Week: The Scaly Pearl Oyster

A not-so-common bivalve from Florida, Pinctada longisquamosa differs from the more commonly found Atlantic Pearl Oyster, Pinctada imbricata, among other characters, mainly by the long, overlapping projections on its periostracum (the external shell layer.) The species reaches 29 mm in size (about 1.15 inches), and is found from Bermuda, Bahamas, east coast of Florida and the Keys, throughout the southern Caribbean Sea to Venezuela and Colombia. Illustration created by Patricia A. Starkey for the

FUM 2023, This Weekend!

The thirteenth meeting of Florida United Malacologists will take place this Saturday, April 15, at the Florida Fish & Wildlife Conservation Commission’s (FWC) Fish & Wildlife Research Institute (FWRI), in St. Petersburg, Florida. The one-day gathering typically includes presentations by researchers, enthusiasts, citizen scientists, educators, and students, and covers a broad swath of mollusk-related topics. This year’s event will include 15 presentations covering a broad swath of topics in malac

Shell of the Week: The Salle Auger

Hastula salleana (Deshayes, 1859), is a marine snail of the auger family Terebridae that may reach about 40 mm (about 1.6 inch) in height. Hastula augers inhabit sandy beaches, where they thrive along the boundary between land and water, being most active during ebbing tides. Hastula augers are known to feed on polychaete worms. They inject a cocktail of toxins into their prey using their hypodermic-needle-like radular teeth, in the same manner as their cousins, the cone snails. The species is f

New Museum Research on Crown Conch Egg Capsules

Did you ever wonder what exactly happens when a marine snail lays its egg capsules? A cool video clip of a female Crown Conch depositing its egg capsules is central to the short scientific note recently published by National Shell Museum staff explaining the process. The note, titled “Observations on the mechanism of egg capsule deposition in Melongena corona (Mollusca: Gastropoda) based on a time-lapse video,” by Carly Hulse, José H. Leal, and Joseph R. Powell, was accepted for publication in t

“Loco” is the “Mollusk of the Year” for 2023!

For a few years now, the Senckenberg Museum Frankfurt, the LOEWE Center for Translational Biodiversity Genomics (TBG), and Unitas Malacologica have been promoting the election of “Mollusks of the Year.” The endeavor is non-discriminatory: Anyone can nominate their favorite species, from any geographic area. Species from marine, land, and freshwater environments are eligible. The selection takes place in March ever year, and TBG will sequence the complete genome (the entire DNA, comprising all ge

The Thrush Cowrie in South Florida

In a research note to be published next week in the Museum’s shell-science journal The Nautilus, Anton E. Oleinik, José H. Leal, Anne DuPont, and Nuch Uthairat record and discuss the recent finding of the non-indigenous Thrush Cowrie, Naria turdus, in the waters of Lake Worth Lagoon, in Palm Beach County, Florida. The species, which had previously been documented in several Caribbean islands, is native to the Red Sea and western Indian Ocean. It’d be interesting to hear from our readers in case

Shell of the Week: The Small-callus Vitrinella

Teinostoma parvicallum Pilsbry & McGinty, 1945, reaches only about 2 mm (0.08 inch) in diameter. The shell is smooth except for very faint growth lines, which are more noticeable around the suture, or the groove separating two successive whorls. There is a small callus (thickening) at the center of the umbilicus (the “hole” on the base of the shell). As with many members of the micromollusk family Teinostomatidae, the shell color is translucent-white. This species is among the smallest found on

Safety in Numbers?

Cone snails are known to perform communal spawning (AKA as group spawning), where many females deposit their egg capsules in the same spot. But it looks like this small group of communal-spawning cone snails include two species, the Florida Cone, Conus anabathrum, and the Alphabet Cone, Conus spurius. They were apparently laying their eggs on an empty Horseshoe Crab carapace, at Caxambas Pass, south of Marco Island, Florida. We accept that the communal spawning behavior supposedly improves on th