>Gastropods NOT food? What about them pulmonate that folks roast in
>their shells with garlic butter? What about those abalone that I
>haven't even gotten a chance to try yet? What about cracked conch,
>conch fritters, conch cakes, stewed conch, conch salad and those
>dreamy conch fingers all done up in a coconut batter (best washed
>down with a frosty Kalik) at that dockside bar and grill in Hopetown
>in the Abacos?
>
>Not food?
>
>Ambrosia!

Heh... the Poms eat a lot of Buccinum undatum... there's a thriving
fishery there. They also eat Littorina littorea.

The Koreans fish Ceratostoma burnetti commercially for food (so why
are shells so expensive when offered?), as wel l as other spp.

The Taiwanese fish Babylonia spp. The Chinese fisg neptunea spp
(which is where all those common sinistral N. arthritica are coming
from).

>The toughest one my mother went through was standing on the reef at low tide
>and watching a native walk ahead of her and pluck out a fist size Golden
>Cowrie.
>She knew the law - if they found it first - they do what they want.  He
>cracked
>it in half long wise and slurped down the snail and continued north on
>the reef
>towards home. Such is life.

She should've offered him a few dollars for it before he broke it...
he'd certainly have taken the money. But since when does C. aurantium
live on reef-flats? Unless it was caught in a storm surge and tossed
up onto the reef, in which case the shell was probably already in bad
shape.
--
Regards
Andrew

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