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.

Pink Slugs and the Bushfire

A few years ago, I wrote a brief piece in this column about the discovery of the Mount Kaputar Pink Slug, a species in the genus Triboniophorus, family Athoracophoridae. Following the recent bushfires in southeastern Australia, the giant (20 cm, about 8 inches), shocking-pink creature is back in the news. The species is part of a small group of land mollusks that are endemic to area of Mount Kaputar National Park. Endemics are species exclusive to a restricted geographic area. The Pink Slug appa

Cool Local Snail: Cloudy Periwinkle

The Cloudy Periwinkle, Littoraria nebulosa (Lamarck, 1822), is found along the coast of Southwest Florida, living above the high tide line, mostly on dead tree trunks and branches. Periwinkles are marine gastropods that became almost completely independent of the aquatic environment. They feed on microalgae and fungi that grow on hard surfaces above the high tide line. Females return to seawater to lay egg their egg capsules, but, other than that, they spend their entire lives in the terrestria

Shell of the Week: The Little Speckled Slipper Snail

Crepidula ustulatulina Collin, 2000, is a local gastropod that reaches only about 13 mm (about 0.5 inch). Its shell is oval, thin, and convex. Slipper snails have an unusual shelf that serves as protection to the animal’s most delicate organs. The shelf margin in this species is arched and extends further forward (downward in the photos) on its left side. As the common name of the species indicates, the shell usually displays a speckled color pattern, with distinct chestnut-brown spots or streak

Shell of the Week: The Scotch Bonnet

What can I say about Semicassis granulata (Born, 1778) that hasn’t already been said? One of the prized local finds on the barrier islands of Southwest Florida, the Scotch Bonnet is rarely found locally, being apparently more common on the open beaches of the mid-Atlantic states, from Florida up to North Carolina (the species is the State Shell of the latter state.) Its attractive shell may reach up to 10 cm (about 4 inches) and is egg-shaped, with a delicate grid-like (cancellate) sculpture, an

Striate Piddocks: Stowaways for Life

The Striate Piddock, Martesia striata (Linnaeus, 1758) is one of the species of wood-boring bivalves found along the coast of SW Florida. Its shells may be found on local beaches, always confined to pieces of driftwood, such as the little (11 cm, or about 4.5-inch) log in the top part of the picture. The log is riddled with the remnants of a few hundred Striate Piddocks. They may grow to be more than an inch long, and have free-living larvae that live in excess of a month drifting in the ocean.

Giant Squid Genome Unveiled!

The Giant Squid, Architeuthis dux Steenstrup, 1857, is the largest living invertebrate, with females attaining about 13 m (43 ft) in length. The species genome was recently unraveled by a team of scientists led by Rute da Fonseca of the University of Copenhagen, Denmark. The genome is the total DNA set of an organism, a system that contains all the hereditary information for a given species. Complete sets of the genome of an organism are included in all cells that have a nucleus.The results of t

Shell of the Week: The Dark Cerith

Cerithium atratum (Born, 1778) is the most common among the six species of the family Cerithiidae present on the barrier islands of Southwest Florida. Its shell grows to about 40 mm (about 1.5 inches) and bears a sculpture of spiral (revolving) cords crossed by axial ("vertical") ribs. Beads form at the intersection of those cords and ribs. Those spiral cords are separated by smaller spiral lines. The shell color is dirt-white to gray covered with irregular brown spots or flecks. This detritus-f

Shell of the Week: The Tampa Drill

Eupleura tampaensis (Conrad, 1846), reaches about 25 mm (an inch) and has a markedly angled shell outline, with a sculpture of about 12 strong axial (“vertical”) ribs crossed by equally strong spiral cords. Could be confused with two species of similar size and proportions: the Mauve-mouth Drill, Calotrophon ostrearum, which has a more rounded, “gentler,” not-angled outline and sculpture of axial ribs that are larger than the spiral cords, or the Gulf Oyster Drill, Vokesinotus perrugatus, which

The Photogenic Wonderpus

Despite its striking (and very unusual) appearance, the Wunderpus Octopus was only described as a species new to science in 2006. Wunderpus photogenicus Hochberg, Norman, & Finn, 2006 have a typical coloration of white band-like markings over a reddish-brown background, but no two individuals show exactly the same pattern. In addition to the distinctive coloration, Wonderpus Octopuses have very long, slender arms and eyes at the end of elongated stalks that protrude from the mantle. They are mas

A Tumbling Snail

Most mollusk species are known only from their shell. But a peek at a beautiful shell can hardly reveal the life habits of the mollusk that made it. Take, for instance, the snail known as Gaza daedala Watson, 1879, a deep-sea species of gastropod from the South and Central Pacific. Reaching about 40 mm (about 1.5 inch), its attractive shell is smooth, iridescent, with delicate pearly hues, resembling the internal layers of abalones, pen shells, and some mussels. The species was named in 1879 by