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.

Boring In, Climbing Up

The free-living larva of a Mahogany Date Mussel, Leiosolenus bisulcatus (d’Orbigny, 1853), will settle on a shell or coral colony, and will bore into it away from the surface until it reaches its mature, maximum size; there it will remain until the end of its days. Mahogany Date Mussels bore by dissolving calcium carbonate using a special boring gland present in the mantle. They are also capable of coating the internal surface of their boreholes using a special lining secreted by the mantle. The

Shell of the Week: The Florida Lucine

Another local member of the widespread family Lucinidae, Stewartia floridana (Conrad, 1833) grows to about 28 mm (about 1.1 inch). The shell outline is circular, with a squarish, truncated posterior end. The shell surface is smooth, and the external sculpture consists of coarse, irregular growth lines. The thin, brownish periostracum (external, brownish layer) is present in well-preserved shells. Commonly found on the back-bay areas of Sanibel and Captiva. #lucinidae #floridalucine #stewartiaf

Shell of the Week: The Elusive Souverbie Lobiger

The Souverbie Lobiger, Lobiger souverbii P. Fischer, 1857, is a sea slug that reaches about 15 mm (0.6 inch) in length. Its cap-like, translucent shell (below) is very thin, covers only the central-dorsal part of the animal, and is flanked by the four parapodial lobes typical of the genus Lobiger. Most likely, the lobes act to increase the apparent size of the animal. That, combined with production of a sticky substance, probably acts to intimidate potential predators. Living Souverbie Lobigers

Shell of the Week: The Thick Lucine

At up to 60 mm (about 2.4 inch), Phacoides pectinatus (Gmelin, 1791) is one of the largest local members of the family Lucinidae. Its shell outline is circular, with a squarish, truncated posterior end (on left of the photos.) The shell surface is chalky, and the external sculpture consists of coarse, irregular ridges. The thin, brownish periostracum (external, brownish layer) is present in well-preserved shells. The color is white, and sometimes the internal surface of the shell is suffused wi

Scorched Rainforest Snails?

While rummaging through my old 35 mm film slides (does anyone still remember them?), I found one I shot in August 1980 during an expedition sponsored by the Museu Nacional (Rio de Janeiro) to the Brazilian state of Pará, in the eastern Amazon Region. The slide shows a small (about half an inch) snail in the family Streptaxidae, genus Streptartemon, crawling on the rainforest litter, and flanked by two small white mushrooms. Most streptaxid snails are carnivorous, having evolved to eat other land

Zip-up That Mantle Edge!

Pen shells anchor themselves to the sandy bottom using a bundle of silky fibers called a byssus. The bivalve is buried with the shorter side of its triangular shell oriented upward, the pointy end down. The Stiff Pen Shell in the images below, Atrina rigida (Lightfoot, 1786), may be found in large quantities on the beaches of Southwest Florida during winter months, when storm waves pull the living bivalves from the bottom. The photos on the right show a living Stiff Pen Shell viewed from above.

The Three-ridged Lucine

Measuring about 7 mm (about 0.28 inch), Cavilinga blanda (Dall, 1901) is another small local member of the family Lucinidae. The outline of its shell is oval, but skewed to one side, with the shell beak pointing in an anterior direction. The shell color is white, its surface is glossy, bearing a sculpture of regular commarginal lines. The internal lining of the valves is sometimes “delaminated,” flaking off. Not commonly found, possibly because of its small size. The shell illustrated was collec

The Telltale Tulip

In 2015, noted British malacologist, historian of science, and author S. Peter Dance wrote a one-page article in the Pallidula, the magazine of the British Shell Collector’s Club, about a conversation we had many years before. Our exchange was based on an unusual Tulip shell, one on which the obviously unintentional distribution of shell pigments by the snail produced the image of a “man’s face.” Is the face that of Peter Dance himself or Edgar Allan Poe’s? Judge for yourself: enjoy Peter’s arti

Collection Informs Science

Last week, Drs. Greg Herbert (University of South Florida, USF) and Stephen Geiger (Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, FWC), together with USF graduate students Stephen Hesterberg and Nicole Seiden, visited the Museum collection to study Horse Conch, Triplofusus giganteus, shells. Their research project includes taking measurements of and sampling material from a large number of Horse Conch shells, using methods that will ultimately allow them to estimate growth rates and longevi

The Octopus Garden

Imagine a large “nursery” of more than a thousand brooding female octopuses assembling in a relatively small area. That is the Octopus Garden, located off the central coast of California. Muusoctopus robustus measures around 380 mm (about 15 inches) in size and was first named in 1990 by Gilbert L. Voss* (University of Miami) and William G. Pearcy (Oregon State University). Back then, scientists had no idea that some deep-sea octopuses could actually spawn together, then proceed to take care of