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.

The Rosy Keyhole Limpet

The Rosy Keyhole Limpet, Fissurella rosea (Gmelin, 1791), is one of the most common species of keyhole limpets in the western Atlantic and Caribbean region. This species, however, is only very rarely found on our barrier islands. The shell is oval, and the orifice (“keyhole”) is also oval and reinforced internally by a callus, which is in turn delimited by a reddish-pink line. Shell colors and patterns vary, but mostly consist of reddish-brown radial bands of distinctive widths set on a lighter-

The Mangrove Periwinkle

As the vernacular ("common") name implies, the Mangrove Periwinkle, Littoraria angulifera (Lamarck, 1822), inhabits the trunks and branches of mangrove trees, in particular those of the Red Mangrove, Rhizophora mangle. The species may reach 30 mm (about 1.2 inch). Periwinkles are marine snails highly adapted at living almsot completely out of sea water, usually high above the intertidal ("between tides") zone. Mangrove Periwinkles feed, using the teeth of their rasping radula, on the thin fil

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

Chimney Clams

These two views of the right valve of a Ponderous Ark (Noetia ponderosa) show a large number of boreholes and dwellings made across that structure by the small bivalve known as Stimpson Chimney Clam, Rocellaria stimpsoni Tryon, 1861. Red lines connect external (left) and internal views of each borehole/dwelling. Read more about the curious boring habits of the Stimpson Chimney Clam here.

A Young Nutmeg

On July 25, 2014, I presented the Common Nutmeg, Cancellaria reticulata (Linnaeus, 1767), including a photo of the live snail. Today, I want to show a young, or juvenile, shell of that species. After settling to the bottom (in the case of mollusks with a planktonic, free-living larva) or hatching from an egg capsule (when there is no planktonic larval stage), young marine snails generally resemble adults of their species, though sometimes with different proportions, colors, or shell textures. Th

Noted Malacologists Visit Museum Collection

Noted bivalve specialists and great all-around malacologists visited the Museum on Monday, December 10, to gauge the extent of our bivalve collection and chat about working with Museum collection material. From left, Eugene Coan (Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History and Summerland Key), Konstantin Lutaenko (A.V. Zhirmunsky National Scientific Center of Marine Biology, Russian Academy of Sciences, Vladivostok), José H. Leal (BMNSM), and Junlong Zhang (Chinese Academy of Sciences, Qingdao). Al

A Tiny, Young Nutmeg

After settling to the bottom (in the case of snails with a planktonic, free-living larva) or hatching from an egg capsule (when there is no planktonic larval stage), young marine snails often resemble adults of their species, though sometimes with different proportions, colors, or shell textures. These illustrations of Common Nutmegs, Cancellaria reticulata (Linnaeus, 1767) show such resemblance: on left, a 50 mm (about 2 inches) adult nutmeg; on top-center, rendered at the same scale as the ad

The Fine-ribbed Auger

The Fine-ribbed Auger, Terebra protexta (Conrad, 1846), is the second most common species among the four species of the auger family Terebridae found on Sanibel and Captiva. Its shell is very similar to that of the more common Eastern Auger, Terebra dislocata, but differs from this latter by its smaller size (about 25 mm, or one inch), slightly flatter whorls, usually more numerous ribs, and less marked incised sub-sutural constriction. Its color is grayish to grayish-brown, or rarely grayish-pu

The Eclectic Food Habits of Lettered Olives

If a picture is worth a thousand words, a great picture is worth much more than that. Consider, for instance, this photo of Lettered Olives, Americoliva sayana (Ravenel, 1834) feeding on the remains of a Speckled Swimming Crab, Arenaeus cribrarius (Lamarck, 1818). The photo was taken at low tide on Marco Island, Florida, by Museum friend (and Shell Ambassador) Amy Tripp. It reminds me of a “clean-up crew” of vultures around roadkill, or hyenas feasting on an antelope carcass. Lettered Olives ha

The Crenulated Pyram

The Crenulated Pyram, Longchaeus suturalis (H. C. Lea, 1843), is, at 12 mm (about 0.5 inch), the largest locally occurring species of the mega-diverse family Pyramidellidae. Pyramidellids are in most cases parasitic marine snails that specialize in sucking the body juices and blood of other marine organisms, including other mollusks, worms, and some crustaceans. The shell of the Crenulated Pyram is smooth, conical, with straight sides; the species is not locally common. The Crenulated Pyram, Lo