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.

First Child Love!

If you have more than one child, do you love the first one more than the other(s)? I believe I feel the same love for my two daughters, but when it comes to the shells I named, the first one stands out in the way I care for them. Last week, I was delighted to see a wonderful pair of images of Arene flexispina (Leal & Coelho, 1985), the first species of mollusks I named, posted in the JaxShells.org website. The two images were taken by one the great contemporary shell (and living mollusk) phot

The Sibling Tellin

The Sibling Tellin, Ameritella consobrina (d’Orbigny, 1853) is a local bivalve of the diverse family Tellinidae. Its shell may reach 12 mm (about 0.5 inch), and is sculptured with commarginal (“concentric”) lines and oblique striations. “Fresh-dead” shells may be translucent, with iridescent undertones, and the color pattern may include reddish or pink rays inside and outside. The pair of valves illustrated was collected by Dr. Jim Scatterday in early 2015 on the East End of Sanibel. The Sibling

The Beautiful Crassatella

The Beautiful Crassatella, Kalolophus speciosus (A. Adams, 1854) is a medium-sized local clam that reaches about 50 mm (2 inches). A member of the family Crassatellidae, the Beautiful Crassatella has a heavy, wedge-like shell with a surface sculpture of about 50–60 commarginal (“concentric”) ribs. Beautiful Crassatellas are light-yellow, orangish-yellow, sometimes orange, and are common occurrences in the Florida fossil record. The Beautiful Crassatella, Kalolophus speciosus, from Sanibel. Photo

The Dusky Cone

The Dusky Cone, Conasprella stearnsii (Conrad, 1869) is one of three locally found species of cone snails, family Conidae. The species reaches about 25 mm (one inch), with the shell spire usually encompassing 1/3 of the shell length, and the entire shell is covered with raised spiral lines. The color pattern on the shell is very variable, usually with combinations of brown markings of different intensities set against a whitish background. Most cone snails feed on marine worms, and the Dusky Con

The Slender Eulima

The Slender Eulima, Melanella hypsela (Verril & Bush, 1900) is one of the locally found species of parasitic snails in the family Eulimidae, which usually live embedded in the bodies of sea cucumbers, sand dollars, sea stars, and other echinoderms. Its shell may reach 8 mm (about 0.3 inch), and is delicate, straight-sided, with a minute protoconch. As with many members of the Eulimidae, shells of live snails (or fresh-dead) are translucent or transparent, becoming opaque after the snail dies. Th

The Chalky Lucine

The Chalky Lucine, Pegophysema schrammi (Crosse, 1876) is the largest of the local species of the diverse bivalve family Lucinidae. It commonly reaches 80 mm (about 3.1 inches) in length. Its shell is very inflated ("fat") and similar to the also local Buttercup Lucine (Anodontia alba), but it lacks the smooth, bright-yellow inner shell surface of this species. Instead, the inside surface of the Chalky Lucine’s valves is whitish and very rough, almost pebbly. Lucinids such as the Chalky Lucine a

The Buttercup Lucine

The Buttercup Lucine, Anodontia alba Link, 1807 is a local clam belonging to the diverse family Lucinidae. Its shell may reach about 50 mm (about 2 inches) in length, and is circular, inflated, with many fine, commarginal (concentric) growth lines. The color is mostly dull-white, and the internal surface of the shell valves is bright-yellow to orange. Lucinids are mostly filter-feeders that also host symbiotic bacteria in their gills, which provide them with an additional source of food. The But

The Fragile Surf Clam

The Fragile Surf Clam, Mactrotoma fragilis (Gmelin, 1791) is a local clam of the surf clam family Mactridae that may reach about 45 mm (about 1.8 inches) in length. Fragile Surf Clams, as its name indicates, has a thin, but relatively resilient shell, with characteristic ridges on the posterior end. The periostracum, or outer, dark shell layer, is more predominant on the posterior end, and the shell never completely closes in that area. The Fragile Surf Clam, Mactrotoma fragilis, from Sanibel. P

The Atlantic Black Sea Hare

The Atlantic Black Sea Hare, Aplysia morio (A.E. Verril, 1901) is a dark-colored, large (up to 40 cm, or 16 inches) sea slug (a gastropod mollusks without an external shell) that presents the typical, wing-like parapodia and internal shell characteristic of the genus Aplysia. Sea hares are active swimmers, using their parapodia to perform wing-like motions. They are voracious macro-herbivores, consuming large quantities of seaweed around the daily. Their eggs are laid in long, gelatinous, string

The Bay Scallop

To celebrate the upcoming 2018 Pine Island Sound Scallop Search (August 18, 2018), organized by the University of Florida’s Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences in conjunction with the Sanibel-Captiva Conservation Foundation, I present the Bay Scallop, Argopecten irradians (Lamarck, 1891), one of the most common species of the family Pectinidae in Southwest Florida. Its shell can reach 75 mm (about 3 inches) in size, and the valves show almost the same degree of convexity, with the lower