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.

A Sea Slug-like Bivalve?

Every January, staff at the Malacology Lab at the Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle (MNHN) in Paris, France, sends their “Happy New Year” communiqué to colleagues and associates. This year’s six-page communiqué included updates on their 2018 activities in New Caledonia, the hyper-biodiverse French territory in the Southwest Pacific that has been a focal point of research led by their principal investigator, malacologist Philippe Bouchet. Galeommatoidean bivalves are particularly well represe

Shell of the Week: The Giant Montacutid

Orobitella floridana (Dall, 1899) has an apparently contradictory vernacular name, as the shell rarely reaches beyond 16 mm (about 0.6 inch) in length. But all is relative in nature: the species belongs to the family Lasaeidae, a group of clams noted for their very small size, with many members of the family reaching only about a couple of millimeters (about 0.08 inch). The Giant Montacutid has an oval, inflated, white shell with a sculpture of concentric lines that become stronger on the anteri

Colin Redfern, 1938-2019

It is with great sadness that I inform that great friend and collaborator Colin Redfern passed away this morning in a life-care facility in his hometown of Boca Raton, Florida. Born in Great Britain, Colin spent a big part of his life in Abaco, Bahamas. He was a classically trained professional pianist and productive citizen scientist who focused on collecting shells and mollusks in that Bahamian island, where he started to gather data and photographs for what eventually became the two editions

Museum Celebrates Aquarium Groundbreaking

On January 18, 2019, the National Shell Museum proudly celebrated a successful groundbreaking on an innovative aquarium which will feature amazing mollusk species from around the world, including octopuses, cuttlefish, giant clams, and squids. Dorrie Hipschman, Executive Director at the National Shell Museum, explains: “The National Shell Museum believes that mollusks—the marvelous creatures that create the shells you find on the beach—are amazing animals. There are more mollusks in the ocean t

Shell of the Week: The Antillean File Clam

Limaria pellucida (C.B. Adams, 1848) reaches 25 mm (one inch), and has, like most species in the family Limidae, an oval-elongate shell that resembles a “distorted,” or asymmetrical, scallop. The shell is thin-walled, translucent-white, with many narrow radial ribs of irregular width and distribution. The hinge “ears” have about the same size. The clam has salmon-pink gills and relatively large translucent-white tentacles festooned with white “rings” over their entire length. Records of beached

Shell of the Week: The Crested Oyster

Ostrea stentina Payraudeau, 1826 (family Ostreidae) is a 40 mm (about 1.5 inch), rarely 50 mm (about 2 inches), oyster that may be found on Southwest Florida beaches. The shell outline consists of variations of oval shapes, and the shell edge is often crenulated, or crimped. Its color is variable, sometimes grayish, often with tinges of brown. Unlike the edible, commercial Eastern Oyster, Crassostrea virginica, which may form large clusters with thousands of individuals, the Crested Oyster is so

Now What, Broken Shells?

Not quite... The photo shows two Alphabet Cone (Conus spurius Gmelin, 1791) shells that have been clipped by predators, most likely Stone or Flame crabs. The resulting gashes reveal that parts of the earlier whorls located inside the shell have disappeared. In each shell only the columella, or central pillar, was left behind. Most likely, dissolution of the inner parts in these shells was not a result from the crabs’ fondness for molluscan meals. Some cone snails, along with other gastropods, a

One Tree Snail Gone, a Big Loss to Planet Earth

This past week the digital media was abuzz with news of the passing of George, the tree snail. George was the last surviving Achatinella apexfulva, a species of Hawaiian tree snail that had been extinct in its natural habitat for many years. George, who passed on New Year's Day at an old 14 years of age, was the offspring of captive breeding, part of conservation efforts put in place in Hawai‘i to save the last few surviving species of island land snails. George’s caretakers had hoped to find a

Shell of the Week: The Atlantic False Jingle

Pododesmus rudis (Broderip, 1834) (family Anomiidae) is very similar to the Common Jingle, Anomia simplex, but can be easily separated from this latter by the rougher-looking valves, with coarser shell surface and the almost complete lack of nacre, the iridescent shell layer known as mother-of-pearl. Common and Atlantic False Jingles and other species in the family Anomiidae attach to hard surfaces (such as large, empty shells) using a peg-like byssus. The byssus passes through the bottom valve

Puzzling Dwarf Conchs

Some groups of mollusks, such as cowries and true conchs (Strombidae) may display dwarfism. Shells in the dwarf forms show the features of mature individuals, such as thickened, flared, or ornamented outer shell lip, but at a much smaller size than expected for that species. For different reasons, most probably unknown, those mollusks reach reproductive maturity at smaller size than “normal” individuals of the same species. Environmental factors, such as overcrowding in boring bivalves, could t