Dear All,
I got a chock when looking in the Conch-L folder. This was some reading !
Fortunately for me you all answered most questions, especially Bruce's
e-mail is revealing most of the things.
In fact, Prof. George Vauquelin, who is looking for the shells, just gave me
a simple phone call and asked if I knew somebody who can provide him with
living geographus. He said 50 will do it perfectly, but less also I guess.
Because I do not know somebody directly, I put a message on Conch-L. It is
one of its purposes of existence. I have no profit on this, just a service
to a good scientist in this field. He is working on Conus toxins since 1986
and indeed, this research has results that goes down to the patients.
Now, as for the rarity of geographus: thousands of them are collected in the
Philippines each year. As I've never seen one on at least several hundred
dives in the Philippines, I wondered where they come from. Very simple: some
areas have populations of thousands, coming out at nighttime.
Also tulipa I never collected, but on the beachfront of Mactan Island I
found several obscurus, 12 m deep. And this, according to Dr. Olivera,
another expert, is an extremely rare species in the Philippines.
In the discussions about the geographus, there were some words about the
blue-ringed Octopus. Last year, while observing marine life in 20 cm deep
water, we saw such a nice Octopus. It was early in the morning and many
Philippinos are looking for their breakfast at low tide. A young man arrived
and didn't understand why we looked attentively this Octopus, he quickly
picked it up on his hand and told us: "very good to eat". We tried to
convince him not to touch, but he just laughed. The Octopus ended up in his
stomach. Later, the same day, Dr. Olivera invited us for supper, and he
explained this species is poisonous here and there, but not everywhere.
Curious.
Hope this clears the sky,
Best regards,
Guido
PS: I tried to mail this yesterday, but apparently it did not go through.
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