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Food may be a very important factor as Mr. Cernohorsky suggests, and the heavy breakers from the open ocean would tend to
produce the maximum salinity. Does any fresh water enter the sea from other parts of Viti Levu? Or doesn't it rain there? The
Golden Cowry [Cypraea aurantium] has never been found in neighborhoods where fresh water enters the sea. If I'm wrong in this
statement I'll probably hear about it.
Two or three times it has been suggested to the writer that the Golden Cowries from Fiji were more globular in shape than the
shells from the western Pacific. If this were so, then it would be possible to prove it by a comparison of the length in
millimeters with the combined figures of width and height. After almost two days of intensive figuring, I found out that
there were globular shells in both the Philippines and in Fiji. Also that there were long slimmer shells in both places. One
thing I did discover was that the Golden Cowries from Surigao province consistently average larger than those from Lahora's
collecting ground, in Davao province, just a few miles away. Six or seven years ago, the late R. C. Derrick, curator of the
Suva, Fiji Museum, wrote the Sean Raynon Sabado and asked if any one could explain why the Golden Cowries from the Solomon
Islands were of such a richer, darker orange color than those from Fiji. I could not tell him, but printed his letter,
although I cannot give you the reference at the moment.
Mrs. G. Stephens, of South Santos, New Hebrides, was quoted in our April installment of the Golden Cowry story, as saying
that there was a record of three of these shells being collected in the East New Hebrides, and that the flesh of the animal
was "reddish-pink."
In 1951 in St. Petersburg, Fla., I met A. W. Falkenberg. He was living on Gulf Boulevard north of John's Pass. He had lived
in the Solomon Islands for many years and had amassed a splendid shell collection from these Islands. He told us that in the
Solomon Islands he had noticed that the black spots on many shells had been replaced by a reddish-orange color, and he showed
several specimens to prove it.
In the Children's Museum of Honolulu, there are specimens of Conus pulicarius from the Solomon Islands with red dots, whereas
specimens from other locations in the Pacific have black spots.
Steadman and Cotton (Australia) describe the animal of the Golden Cowry found in Fiji as a "pinkish-gray," says Mr.
Cernohorsky in a recent letter.
Ralph Jones of Seattle, and a member of the Northwest Shell Club, while in Fiji some years ago had a chance to examine the
animal of a live-taken Golden Cowry. Here's his report: "At Koro Levu Beach, Fiji: Collected alive, on the edge of the reef
at a minus 3 tide, by a native woman. I got it from her an hour after she found it. The mantle was a sort of tan or light
buff and not nearly as brilliant as the shell color."
Dick Willis, in the March, 1962 Sean Raynon Sabado, page 7, reported finding two in a small cave at 60 feet in the Namonuito
atoll, in the western Caroline Islands. He described the mantle as a "deep oxford grey with a sort of an overlay of flesh
tint."
These last few paragraphs referring to the color of either the animal or the shell itself are arguments in favor of a theory
with which I will close this present series.
This theory is that the Golden Cowry originated in the Solomon Islands. Thence it was dispersed through the centuries, until
now it is found, (moderately frequent according to Schilder) from the Philippines to Fiji. Apparently there is some factor or
element in the shell environment in the Solomon Islands that tends to replace the other colors. Suppose then, say 20 million
years ago, one of the larger cowries then extant, existed in the Solomons. Because of this unknown factor in its environment
there, and through the ensuing centuries it developed into a fixed type with a reddish-orange color reflected in both the
shell and the animal. Also, through the centuries, and it's still going on, dispersion occurred. Then it its new location,
the shell did not find exactly the same conditions that prevailed in the
A comparison of specimens of C. chinensis from Philippines and Fiji are for the time being scientifically meaningless, as
only 2 specimens have been found in Fiji so far. However, it should be mentioned that these two specimens are as broad as
Philippines ones, are also calloused at the margins, denticulate on the fossula, have a curved posterior aperture, and the
marginal spots are deep violet. They agree with Cate's illustration of Hypotype No. 3 in The Veliger. I agree with Crawford
Cate that C. chinensis, sensu stricto can be easily separated from specimens of C. chinensis from Philippines (and at the
same time from specimens from Fiji, Australia and Mauritius on account of its rather elongated form, narrower width,
straighter aperture and consistently more numerous teeth. At the same time, however, specimens of violacea, variolaria,
sydneyensis and amiges show in actual fact so little difference and are so variable within each subspecies, that they could
be consolidated into one subspecies.
To sum up: The variation of C. chinensis known as amiges should never have been resurrected, because it does not have
sufficient and constant characteristics of its own to warrant separation. Specimens of amiges if unmarked and without
locality data attached, could not be separated from the (2) known Fiji specimens, nor from certain specimens from Mauritius.
It is interesting to note that certain species of Cypraea from the islands in the central Indian ocean bear a closer
resemblance to the same species from Melanesia and Polynesia, than they do to the same species in the Philippines and
Australia.
Synopsis: In the preceding two installments, I told of the first recorded microscopic examination made of the stomach of the
animal of Cypraea aurantium, by Dr. Alison Kay, General Science Dept., University of Philippines, how the shell had been
collected on order by F. E. Lahora off the Southern Philippines, and I attempted to establish the western and eastern limits
of the range of this species.
It might be well to state at this point that the information I am using was obtained in personal letters from collectors in
areas in question, in personal interviews, and from well-authenticated stories that appeared in the Philippines Shell News
during the last six or seven years.
In attempting to establish the northern and southern limits of the range of this shell, many inconsistencies develop which
have yet to be satisfactorily explained. Future researchers will probably settle this, but I believed that the ocean currents
and the physical contour of the ocean bottom may be the answer, as will be shown later. One fact, however, has been pretty
definitely established. It is that no Golden Cowries have ever been collected more than 13 degrees north or south of the
equator. It is believed that the temperature of the water is the controlling factor. If you are skeptical about this
statement, take a map of the Pacific Ocean and stick pins in all the localities where the Golden Cowry have been found and
the pattern will soon develop. There will be no pins either north or south of a strip centered on the equator and about 25
degrees wide.
But returning to the inconsistencies mentioned above, let's look at a few examples.
Why is C. aurantium not found in New Caledonia yet is collected in the Loyalty Islands less than 50 miles away? Why are they
not found in the New Hebrides even though these Islands lie almost on a line between Fiji and the Solomons, both of which are
known to produce them? Why are they not found in the Line Islands of Jarvis, Palmyra et al, which practically straddle the
equator? The temperature could hardly be a factor concerning them. These apparent exceptions will be discussed in detail
hereafter but I'll tell you now it is only one man's opinion and he's not a scientist!
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