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My first experience in a native "Binta Boat" came early the next morning. The boat had the body of a large canoe with two
outriggers on it and a large colorful square sheet for a sail. In no time at all, Joe Abanales and myself were on our way to
Little Santa Cruz Island about two miles off Zamboanga City. I was especially anxious to look the reef over where, in 1959,
thousands of small Cypraea were washed ashore after a typhoon. While I never saw that many cowries there, some seem to be
still washing ashore. I found on the beach: Cypraea cicercula, bistrinotata, globulus, punctata, ziczac, lutea, raysummersi
and scurra, also Conus cylindraceus and mitratus.
I tried diving in the same area at the south end of the island. But even after several hours of breaking coral with a crow
bar from 5'-20' deep, I never turned up any of the shells that I had found on the beach. Next morning I went out with two
native divers to Large Santa Cruz Island working that area over but to little avail except for some common cones and cowries.
So I went on back to Little Santa Cruz and tried diving at about the middle of the island (which is about 1/2 mile long and
500' wide) right in front of a light house. I figured that maybe the current was carrying the shells down to the reef at the
south end of the island where I had collected on the beach the day before.
Again after several hours of turning coral heads and breaking coral I concluded that the rare "cyps" must live in deep
channel water between the islands and the mainland. One nice large dome coral head in 15' of water did yield a small dead
Cypraea that at first glance I thought to be beckii, which made me very happy. However, later on back in the "Binta Boat" I
could see that it was too large for beckii and lacked the ocellated dots all over the dorsum of that shell. I suspected I
might have the exceedingly rare Cypraea martini, but never having seen one before, it wasn't until I arrived back in Manila a
week later that I was sure! When I saw Donald Dan's copy of The Veliger with Crawford Cate's recent artical and illustrations
of Cypraea martini, I really jumped for joy! My specimen was a dead ringer for Cate's specimen except for size (one mm
longer) and being a more adult shell. This makes 2 recent specimens found in the P. I. To have personally collected this
rarity myself was quite an experience! Not counting the other 2,000 shells I bought and collected on my trip to Sulu,
Zamboanga, Davao and Cebu, this one shell made the trip worth while.
The famous collection of the late Ph. Dautzenberg, now preserved in the museum of Brussels, contains several drawers with
almost three hundred pathological monstrosities in cowries. I also have been on the look out for deformations of cowry shells
caused by various accidents during the animal's life, but healed and repaired by the mollusk as far as it was possible.
Getting the live Lima scabra was quite an experience, too. They were back in holes in a rock wall and under small loose
rocks. We held on to the larger rocks, with our feet on a little ledge that dropped off to 20 feet or more. Neither Mary nor
I are good enough swimmers to venture in water over our heads but we sort of forgot about that as we saw the red and white
tentacles waving about. We'd reach for the shell which would snap shut and retreat in the rocks. Some were attached by a
byssus and some were free swimming. We were both pretty leery of reaching in after it so if it got more than a couple of
inches back, we thought of moray eels and what have you, left that one and looked for one easier to get.
It was very warm and we think we'll plan future trips for cooler weather. Still, if we hadn't gone this summer, we might not
have gotten the Cyphoma and Lima.
P. S. Our Fort Myers Shell Club was organized in November 1962 and has 36 members. Mary Hartman mentioned above is secretary
and I am president. We have a very congenial group and are enjoying the club very much.
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