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.

Shell of the Week: The Blood Ark

Lunarca ovalis is an ark clam that stands out because of its heavy fur-like periostracum, or outermost shell layer. Reaching 64 mm (about 2.5 inches), its shell is inflated, oval, and is almost as long as it is high, being one of the shorter ark clams in Florida. As with most members of the family Arcidae, the shell bears a number of radial ribs. The vernacular (“common”) name of this species refers to the color of its blood, imparted by the presence of a form of hemoglobin. The latter helps imp

Shell of the Week: The Four-ribbed Lucine

Pleurolucina leucocyma reaches 7 mm (about 0.28 inch) in length. Its shell is unusually shaped (like a "warped triangle”) and bears 3 or 4 thick radial ribs crossed by fine commarginal (“concentric”) lines. The color is cream to off-white. The species is found off North Carolina, both coasts of Florida, Gulf of Mexico, and the Bahamas. #pleurolucinaleucocyma #lucinidae #drytortugas #lucinaleucocyma

Glowing Jewel Boxes

Ultraviolet (UV) light ("black light") reveals residual color patterns in fossil mollusk shells that would otherwise go undetected. UV light can also excite certain shell layers in different ways, as shown in this image of the inside of the two valves of a fossil Caribbean Spiny Jewel Box (Arcinella arcinella). (Photos of the valves under natural light are given for comparison.) While most of the internal surface of the valves glow a bright purple color, both adductor muscle scars and the pallia

Princess Margaret and Shells

Princess Margaret (The Countess of Snowdon, 21 August 1930 – 9 February 2002) was the younger daughter of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth (the Queen Mother) of the United Kingdom. She was the younger sister and only sibling of Queen Elizabeth II.  Robert Tucker Abbott (September 28, 1919 – November 3, 1995) was an American malacologist, author of dozens of shell-themed books, and Founding Director of our Bailey-Matthews Shell Museum, as it was named back then. Through his writings, Tucker ins

Shell of the Week: The Bubble Melampus

Melampus bullaoides is a close relative of the more common and local Coffee Melampus (Melampus coffea). Like the Coffee Melampus, the Bubble Melampus lives in mangrove areas, where it thrives well above the tide lines. The shell shape of the Bubble Melampus is strikingly different, however; this species has a relatively longer and pointed spire and shorter aperture (shell “opening”). This imparts a “bullet shape” to the shell. The shell color is mahogany-brown, with fuzzy white bands near the sh

A Hungry Giant Triton!

Check this Giant Triton (Monoplex parthenopeus), happily feasting on a clam in the Focal Tank at the Bailey-Matthews National Shell Museum & Aquarium. Its proboscis is deep inside the clam shell! Giant Tritons feed on other mollusks. The species is relatively common in the western Atlantic and is also present in parts of the Indian and Pacific oceans. Notice the lush, hair-like periostracum, or outer shell layer and its “polka-dot” spotted mantle, foot, and proboscis! This particular individual

The Common Jingle and its Byssus

Widespread on the beaches of Southwest Florida, Common Jingles (Anomia simplex) appear in many colors. In the jingle family Anomiidae, the top shell valve is whole, while the bottom one has an opening.Like mussels and some other bivalves, jingles are attached to hard surfaces by a byssus, which originates from a gland in the foot. In jingles, that opening on the bottom valve lets the byssus pass through the shell before attaching to the host surface.In mussels and other bivalves, the byssus usua

Shell of the Week: The Small Phos

Bailya parva is a small but attractive gastropod that reaches only 20 mm (about 0.8 inch). Its shell sculpture presents 10–12 axial (“vertical”) ribs crossed by spiral lines, with beads forming at the intersections. The shell color is yellowish- to mahogany-brown with broad white bands. The species is found off Florida, Gulf of Mexico, and the Caribbean Sea. This species may be difficult to distinguish from the Intricate Phos (Bailya intricata), a species with similar distribution; this latter,

The Reverse-coiled Whelks Project

I am working on a research project with colleagues Jerry Harasewych (Smithsonian) and Manuel Tenório (University of Cádiz, Spain) involving studies of shell shape in two species of whelks. If you have one or more right-handed (reverse-coiled) Lightning Whelks (*Sinistrofulgur sinistrum*) and / or left-handed Knobbed Whelks (*Busycon carica*) in your private or institutional shell collection, we would like to photograph them or have you assist by photographing them for us. Please send answers / q

Those Perfectly Clipped Lucines

Last June, my colleague malacologist Paula Mikkelsen sent an email inquiring about Tiger Lucines (Codakia orbicularis) found by a friend in the Bahamas. The shells were complete (two paired, attached valves), but in each case one of the valves was trimmed following a commarginal (“concentric”) pattern. The clams obviously grew a complete shell, but one of the valves was cut later to about half of its original diameter.Last week I received a similar inquiry from conchologist and friend Bev Doleza