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.

An Ammonite in Burmese Amber

Who doesn’t like amber? The result of the fossilization of plant resins, amber is a cool-looking, translucent, yellow-orange-brown substance that has been used in the manufacture of jewelry and decorative objects since the Stone Age. Amber is also known for its unique preservation properties, helping conserve otherwise hard-to-fossilize organisms, including small vertebrates, insects, spiders, and a plethora of other animals. Small animals are trapped within the slow-flowing but impervious, mol

The Many Faces of the Twin Drupe

A relatively common species in the tropical western Atlantic, the Twin Drupe, Trachypollia didyma (Schwengel, 1943), is a small (about 15 mm, or 0.6 inch) muricid gastropod that grows from a free-living, pelagic larva into a crawling adult. The larval shell is preserved on the apex of the adult shell as its protoconch. The images show, clockwise from left, a young shell (about 4 mm, or 0.16 inch) captured under a scanning electron microscope (SEM); in color, an adult shell measuring about 12 mm

Super-size Me, Said the Fossil Cowrie!

Reaching 247 mm (about 9.7 inches!), Zoila gigas (McCoy, 1867), a middle Miocene fossil species from Australia, is the largest known cowrie (family Cypraeidae), fossil or living. The shell in this photo, measuring about 7.5 inches, collected in Hamilton, Victoria, Australia, is cataloged in the Museum collection under number BMSM 39220. Read more about mollusks and their shells on the Museum web site.

Shell of the Week: The Trilix Vitrinella

Cyclostremiscus pentagonus (Gabb, 1873) is a member of the microgastropod family Tornidae that grows to be up to 2.2 mm in size. The shell is flattened, compressed, but with the spire projecting in early whorls, sculpture of microscopic growth lines. The last whorl in cross-section has a pentagonal shape. Base with two main spiral ridges. Shell color whitish-translucent, clear. The shell illustrated was collected in 2008 by former Museum collection volunteer Lois Dunnam on the East End of Sanibe

The Secret Life of “Sea Pork”

A common find on the beaches of Sanibel and Captiva, particularly after winter storms, ascidians, also known as “sea squirts” or “sea pork,” are among the most common subjects of inquiries about sea life by island visitors and Museum guests. Recently, I had a chance to pitch in with some information about the subject for the cool online blog Atlas Obscura. Read Jessica Leigh Hester’s article about “sea pork” here. (Photo of Aplidium stellatum near Destin, Florida by Rebekah Danielle Wallace, Un

Shell of the Week: The Amber Melampus

The Amber Melampus, Creedonia succinea (Pfeiffer, 1854), is another local member of the Ellobiidae, a family of air-breathing snails. Shells reach about 3.5 mm (about 1.4 inch), are oval-elongate, translucent, very fragile, thin, with a glossy surface and no perceptible sculpture. The aperture is large, and typically bears two columellar plaits, or “teeth,” with the posterior (“top”) tooth twice as large as the anterior one. The shell color is variable, generally translucent amber, light-brown,

Shell of the Week: The Left-handed Melampus

The Left-handed Melampus, Blauneria heteroclita Montagu, 1808, is an unusual gastropod found in mangrove areas of the Caribbean, the Gulf of Mexico, and the southeastern United States. Its sinistral (left-handed) shell reaches about 5 mm (0.2 inch), is slender, bullet-shaped, with a glossy surface (when well-preserved), covered with microscopic growth lines. The Left-handed Melampus belongs to the family Ellobiidae, a group of air-breathing (pulmonate) snails that evolved to inhabit areas very c

Sea Slug Spotlight: The Antilles Oxynoe

The elegant Antilles Oxynoe, Oxynoe antillarum Mörch, 1863, is found along shallow reef areas of the Caribbean and other parts of the tropical western Atlantic, including the Gulf of Mexico. It can grow to about 30 mm (1.2 inches) in length. Antilles Oxynoes have an internal coiled shell. The species feeds on green sea weeds in genus Caulerpa, incorporating the pigment-rich chloroplasts into their own mantle. (Chloroplasts are the sites of photosynthesis in plants.) The resulting green color he

The Sparse Dove Snail?

This locally occurring species looks very similar to and could represent the Sparse Dove Snail, Costoanachis sparsa (Reeve, 1859). Shells from Southwest Florida differ ever so slightly from other varietals of this latter species, though, by details of the sculpture, including the deeply etched spiral lines below the suture (area separating two consecutive whorls). You’ll find that we cite the species in the Museum’s identification guide as “Costoanachis aff. sparsa”. The abbreviation “aff.” sta

Shell of the Week: The Fringed Vitrinella

At about 3.5 mm (0.14 inch) in diameter, Episcynia inornata (d’Orbigny, 1842) is one of the “medium-sized” members of the microgastropod family Tornidae (some species of the family measure about 1 mm in diameter only!) Its shell has a flattened trochoid (“top shell-like”) shape, is translucent, probably transparent in the living snail, very thin and fragile, with about 5 whorls. Typically, the shell periphery is garnished with tiny teeth-like projections, with thin wisps of brownish periostracum