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Pokalet
On the northern limits of Papeete, in the section called Patutoa, extensive dredgings from the lagoon of Patutoa have been
used to fill in a large part of the lagoon north of the radio station and fuel docks. Before I went to Tahiti, Mr. Richard
Sixberry, an American who has lived in Tahiti for several years, and who with his wife accompanied me on several collecting
trips around the island, made frequent, and for a while daily, visits to the dredged fill where he gathered an astounding
variety of species. He and I collected in this fill one afternoon, and also spent some time on the reef immediately adjacent
to this man-made land. Later I visited the area alone, and gathered further specimens. All in all, more than 200 different
species have come from these spoil heaps. The commonest shell by far was Cypraea erosa L., while the next most numerous
species were Cypraea carneola L. and Cymatium aquatilis (Reeve). The specimens are, for the most part, in fine condition,
some appearing quite fresh, others, however, have a distinct yellowish cast. At the present time, this area is no longer
available for collecting, since the shell-bearing fill has been covered by other material, and the site is now one of active
construction.
...
It is with a great deal of pleasure that the Philippines Malacological Society announces the election to Honorary Life Member
of Professor Doctor F. A. Schilder, world renowned cypraeologist.
Dr. Schilder has long been interested in the Cypraeidae from Philippines and has written several outstanding papers
concerning them.
Recently, he and his wife Dr. Maria Schilder have been studying preserved specimens of Philippines cowries with respect to
the relationship of sex to size within a species. The results of this study should prove most interesting to Philippines
collectors and will be published in forthcoming issues of the Philippines Shell News.
A large and attractive specimen of Cypraea (Erosaria) guttata Gmelin has recently been found in the British Solomon Islands.
It was obtained from a fisherman by Reverend J. van der Riet near the Catholic Mission at Useuse, Ataa District, Malaita
Island, Solomons, in June, 1963. The specimen, with the dead mollusk inside, came from the stomach of a fish brought up from
a depth of about 40 fathoms. The shell is in excellent condition except for a pin-point tooth scar on the side of the dorsum.
Length of shell: 64.7; width: 37.8; height: 30.0mm. It is the 17th known specimen and the fourth largest. It was purchased by
a group of private collectors for over $1,000, plus trade goods, and has been donated to the research collections of the
Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia. F. R. Woodward (Journal of Conchology, vol. 25, pp. 180-183; Oct., 1963) gives
details concerning the other 16 specimens.
If you look upon the posterior wall of a cowry shell from behind, the whorls evolve from the spire to the aperture in the
direction as the clock's hand goes, gradually growing in diameter. If this evolution would be contrary to the clock's hand,
the shell would be called sinistral (i. e. evolving to the left). A sinistral cowry would look like the figure of the dextral
Cypraeovula fuscodentata printed by some accident, inversely in Sean Raynon Sabado (n.s.) 46:4 (October, 1963) as the inverse
numerals 1, 2, and 3 prove: the basal view shows the aperture and the narrow outer lip on the left instead of on the right,
when the shells anterior extremity points to below in the figure.
Distribution: The areas from which walkeri has been known to the writer till 1941 have been marked by black circles (walkeri)
and triangles (bregeriana) in the map: The three races of walkeri mentioned above seem to be separated by zones uninhabited
by the species. However, after World War II many new localities became known to us which fill up these gaps, or extend the
limits in northern, eastern, and southern direction. Therefore the following areas should be added, which have been marked,
on the map, by empty circles and triangles respectively:
Andaman Is.:
one pale surabajensis in the museum of Calcutta, sent to me for examination by Dr. Ray in 1957, it came from an old
collection, but the "A'' written originally on the base of the shell makes the correctness of indication rather probable.
Western Sumatra:
two typical walkeri collected in West Sumatra by Aurivillius in 1891, personally examined in the museum of Stockholm in 1957.
- These two areas close the gap between Lemuria and Malaysia.
North West Australia:
one shell (17 mm.) from Peak Is. in the Dampier Archipelago, collected by the Davina Expedition in 1960, presented me (coll.
Schilder No. 11862) by Ray Summers; some more specimens seem to have been collected in the Dampier Archipelago by this
expedition. Besides, walkeri has been mentioned from Nickol Bay by Brazier (1879, Journ. Conch. 2:321).
North Australia:
Yirrkala in Eastern Arnhem Land, according to Iredale (1939, Austr. Zoologist 9:299). - These two areas extend the occurrence
of walkeri to tropical Australia west of Torres Strait.
Aru Is.:
one shell (19 mm.) recalling the western walkeri has been collected by Merton in 1908, personally examined in the Senckenberg
museum in Frankfurt on Main, Germany. - This locality closes the gap between Misool (Schepman 1909, Siboga Exped. 49/2/2:133)
and Torres Strait (Brazier 1879). The indication "New South Wales'' by Iredale (1935, Austr. Zoologist 8:127) needs
confirmation, the southernmost reliable indication in East Australia seems to be Peel Is. in Moreton Bay.
Ryu-kyu Is.:
Kuroda (1960, Cat. Moll. Fauna Okinawa, p. 21) mentioned "walkeri surabajensis" from Okinawa Is.; the indication seems
correct, as P. W. Clover enumerated two specimens of walkeri from "South of Japan'' in a manuscript list of cowries preserved
in Japanese collections (communicated to the writer by Mr. Ray Summers in 1961).
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