James,

The triton trumpet produces veligers that live as planktonic larvae for many months
of unknown length. I did try to rear them myself once without success.
The Kagoshima Prefectural Sea-Farming Center had tried for several years and
the longest rearing period was about 10 months but larvae still did not undergo
metamorphosis. It is just like rearing spiny lobster larvae that were finally brought
up to metamorphosis in recent years after many many years (half century long)
of efforts by many competent researchers in Japan.

The close relative of the Pacific triton trumpet: the Atlantic species was studied
by the scientist from the Woods Hole and it also had larvae of very long life as
plankton and Rudy Scheltema coined a term for such long-living planktonic larvae as
"teleplanic larvae".

Masashi Yamaguchi
e-mail: [log in to unmask]
HTTP://www2s.biglobe.ne.jp/~big/coral/
Department of Marine Sciences,
University of the Ryukyus
1 Senbaru, Nishihara, Okinawa 903-0213 Japan