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.

World Congress of Malacology 2019

The World Congress of Malacology 2019 will take place from August 11–16 at the Asilomar Conference Grounds in Pacific Grove, California. The California Academy of Sciences is the primary host for the event. WCM 2019 will bring together malacologists from all over the planet, and will be a joint meeting of the world organization for mollusk-related sciences, Unitas Malacologica, together with the American Malacological Society (AMS) and the Western Society of Malacologists (WSM). I will be prese

Shell of the Week: The Adams Scale Snail

For the moment, Cochliolepis adamsii (P. Fischer, 1857) is the last in a long series of species of the family Tornidae covered in this column. It is also, in my opinion, one of the more elegant species of that micromollusk family, with its low-profile, disk-shaped shell. The sculpture consists of fine spiral lines, the umbilicus (“hole” on the bottom of the shell) is large, and is not closed by a callus. The aperture is slanted and the outer lip thin. The color is milk-white, opaque. The shell i

A Hardy Aquatic Snail

The Bladder Snail, Physella acuta (Dreparnaud, 1805) is familiar to freshwater aquarium enthusiasts, as they have the uncanny ability to appear “out of the blue” in their tanks. This is exactly what happened at home last week, when my significant other, Kim Nealon, found several, 1/4-inch long, sinistral (left-handed) snails thriving in our home fish tank. The Bladder Snail, also known as Tadpole Snail or Acute Bladder Snail, is a globally invasive species: the snails have the ability, following

Shell of the Week: The Biscayne Vitrinella

With adult shells reaching only about 2 mm (about 0.08 inch) in diameter, Teinostoma biscaynense Pilsbry & McGinty, 1945 is one of the smallest members of the family Tornidae in the western Atlantic. The shell has a low spire, is flattened, depressed, and its periphery (outer shell “edge”) is softly angled. The shell spire and base lack any sculpture except for coarse, irregular growth lines. The protoconch is sunken within the adult shell. The umbilicus is completely obliterated by a whitish, o

Shell of the Week: The Interrupted Vitrinella

Parviturboides interruptus (C.B. Adams, 1850) is a member of the microgastropod family Tornidae with ample distribution in the Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico, and is found also along the coast of Southwest Florida. Larger shells of the species reach only about 1.5 mm (about 0.06 inch) in diameter. The shell has a raised spire, and is covered by strong, raised spiral cords, that may number as many as 15 in the last whorl. The umbilicus is present, but small. The shell color is translucent-white.

Hi, Piglet Squid!

Check out this great footage of a Piglet Squid (Heliconcranchia species) shot early this month at 1,385 m depth off the Palmyra Atoll in the central Pacific. The video was shot by the crew of the Exploration Vessel Nautilus, run by Dr. Robert Ballard on behalf of the Corps of Exploration-Ocean Exploration Trust. Piglet Squids live in deep-water, have big eyes, a pig snout-like siphon, and arms that look like deer antlers!

Jingle Double Whammy!

The Common Jingle, Anomia simplex d’Orbigny, 1853, is a bivalve from the tropical western Atlantic and the Gulf of Mexico. They live in shallow-water, attached to dead shells and other hard structures. Many bivalves that make a living attached to hard surfaces rely on a byssus for that attachment. In mussels and other bivalves, the byssus consists of strong, elastic protein fibers; in jingles (Family Anomiidae), the byssus is solid, pillar-like, and made of a tough composite material, a mixture

The Growth of Cone Snail Teeth

Cone snails subdue and kill their prey using harpoon-like teeth that act as hypodermic needles that deliver potent “venom cocktails” to their prey. Each distinct species produces its own, particular cocktail of different toxins. After a strike, each toxin provokes a specific reaction on the prey animal. Worms, fishes, and other mollusks, are the preferred prey items of cone snails, with each cone snail species favoring prey belonging to just one of these categories and not the others. Cone snai

Out of Sight, But Not Out of Mind

Typically, deep-sea animals have not been the focus of conservation concerns, mostly because they are not readily observable and poorly known. In the past few years, scientists studying the animal communities that thrive around deep-sea hydrothermal vents started a discussion on the potential impact resulting from prospection for mining in those unique environments. Hydrothermal vent fields are “auditorium-sized” sites of underwater volcanic activity (usually down to 2.5–three miles in depth) wh

Shell of the Week: The Elegant Glassy Bubble

Haminoea elegans (Gray, 1825) has been found locally measuring up to 17 mm. The shell is very thin, almost elongate-ovate. Sculpture of very fine spiral grooves. There is an orifice on the apical region of shell, known as an apical depression. This is a very variable species; compare with H. antillarum, which is usually smaller, more rounded overall, with less well-defined spiral lines, and lacks the apical depression. Color may be translucent dirty-white, greenish, yellowish, or pink. Animal tr