Curator’s Corner

Museum, research, and collection updates from Dr. José H. Leal, plus Shell of the Week, which highlights a different species every other Friday. Most Shells of the Week are found in Southwest Florida.

Dr. José H. Leal serves as the Bailey-Matthews National Shell Museum & Aquarium’s Science Director and Curator. He received his Ph.D. in Marine Biology and Fisheries from the University of Miami and has served at the Museum since 1996.

FUM 2023

The thirteenth meeting of Florida United Malacologists will take place on Saturday, April 15, 2023, 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. The Bailey-Matthews National Shell Museum hosted the first FUM in 2010, and the event

The Gliding Olive

Lettered Olives, Oliva sayana, feed on marine worms, crustaceans, and small bivalves, among other prey items, but on occasion can be scavengers, feeding on the carcasses of dead fish, crabs, and other mollusks. They are fast-moving mollusks, as suggested by the little “bow waves” generated by the snail in the photo, as it moves through one-half-inch-deep water on Bunche Beach, Fort Myers, Florida (at low tide).

Shell of the Week: The Eared Ark

Anadara notabilis (Röding, 1798), reaches 92 mm (about 3.6 inches). Its shell valves have about 25 to 27 radial ribs per whorl, with fine commarginal (“concentric”) lines cross the ribs, giving a beaded aspect to the valves in this species. The shell is white and the periostracum, when present, is brown and heavy (but not as heavy as in the Ponderous Ark, Noetia ponderosa. This species occurs in shallow water along the coast of East Florida and the northern coast of the Gulf of Mexico, but is no

The 2023 Live Mollusk Count

On Sunday, January 22, volunteers and staff from the National Shell Museum and the Sanibel-Captiva Conservation Foundation completed the 2023 Live Mollusk Count. The count took place along the Gulf side on the eastern end of Sanibel Island, at low tide, including 27 participants. National Shell Museum Science Director & Curator José H. Leal observed that “the 2023 Shell Count achieved very good results. The number of participants, methods, and count area lend themselves to comparisons with the J

Three New Nautilus Species!

Exciting news in the world of mollusks, with the recent description (the research article was published yesterday, January 25, 2023) by Gregory J. Barord and his collaborators of three new species of Nautilus. The three species occur respectively off American Samoa (Nautilus samoaensis), Fiji (N. vitiensis), and Vanuatu (N. vanuatuensis), all in the Southwest Pacific Ocean. The authors used contemporary techniques to define the new species, including evidence from shell and body anatomy, all val

Bubble Snail Die-offs

Last Friday, I posted an entry in the Museum’s social media (Facebook, Instagram) describing how the wrack line on the eastern end of Sanibel (Lighthouse Beach) was littered with empty, mostly juvenile shells of the Western Striate Bubble, Bulla occidentalis. I ended the post with a vague “we wonder what could happened.” The post prompted a number of comments and suggestions from our audience. We learned that the phenomenon occurred at least from Naples and Keewaydin Island in Collier County nor

Shell of the Week: A Juvenile Junonia

This 12 mm (about 0.5 inch) Scaphella junonia already has the trademark brown spots that tipify the adult shells of the species. The young shell, however, has a reticulated (net-like) surface sculpture that is absent from the adult shell. Read more about the Junonia at https://tinyurl.com/a8dv8kkc. #scaphellajunonia #junonia #juvenilejunonia #capecanaveral

A Little Sea Slug from Sarasota

This small (about 11 mm, or about 0.5 inch) but endearing sea slug was originally identified as Flabellina dushia. It has a bluish-white, slightly translucent body with reddish cerata. The cerata contain expansions of the digestive tract that are used in some species to store the stinging cells of animals they eat such as sea anemones, hydroids, and sea fans. Not only the sea slugs can inhibit the action of stinging cells, but they also recycle the cells for their own defense. This slug was phot

Shell of the Week: The Mottled Miter

Vexillum dermestinumLamarck, 1811 reaches about 17 mm (about 0.7 inch). The shell sculpture includes well-defined axial ribs and narrower spiral ridges. The columella has three strong, beaded folds. This species has a complex color pattern of brown bands and spots on a white and yellow background. The Mottled Miter occurs in the east coast of Florida and the Keys, Gulf of Mexico, the Caribbean all the way to the tropical part of Brazil, but is not found in Southwest Florida. #vexillumdermestinum

Complex Vision in Strawberry Conchs

True conchs in the family Strombidae have large, camera-type eyes that are extra well-developed and more complex when compared to the eyes of other gastropods. In Strawberry Conchs, Conomurex luhuanus, the eye contains a hemispherical lens, a cornea, a pupil surrounded by a pigmented iris, a vitreous body, and a cup-shaped retina consisting of several layers. The eye is very large in relation to body size and is very sophisticated, even when compared with those of other true conch species. Resea