I Would like to thank Don for including me with such an honor , I am a bit
apprehensive about checking on the Latin translation of episcopatus though.
Ok Tom it's up to you...........
BTW , I can't resist running this in the newsletter , and you do get all the
credit as the "Indo Pacific Field Reporter" I do hope this is Ok with you
......
Mark James & Peta Susan Bethke
3001 South Ocean Dr. Suite 4-V
Hollywood, Florida
33019-2804
U.S.A.
-----Original Message-----
From: Don Barclay <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask] <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Wednesday, April 07, 1999 7:43 AM
Subject: Cone Wars Round 1
 
 
>Hi All,
>
>I did finally get the aquarium set up, and have been catching
>fish for it for the past three days.  I finally went out to catch
>some cones this afternoon, and caught most of the ones that
>I was hunting.
>
>I now have one conus textile, about 80mm ("Art"), one conus
>magnificus, 70mm ("Eduardo"), one conus episcopatus, about
>65mm ("Tom"), another episcopatus about 55mm ("Mark"),
>and a conus canonicus, 50mm ("Ross").  I still plan to put an
>omaria or two in the tank, and a couple bandanus.  I'll have to
>make a trip to get a nice sized marmoreus for my experiment:
>I don't think a 30mm bandanus is a fair fight against an 80mm
>textile.
>
>To keep the guys from becoming unnecessarily cannibalistic,
>I also caught some cowries today, all but one of which is now
>crawling circles around the tank.  I collected one cypraea talpa,
>one lynx, four cauricas, one erosa, and four arabicas, plus a
>handful of annulus and moneta cowries.  I caught a few other
>cones too (catus, sanguinolentus, capitaneus) but decided not
>to include them in the equation.
>
>I didn't even get all the animals in the aquarium before I saw
>something I'd never seen before.  In my collecting bottle, my
>shy magnicus, Eduardo, snaked out his proboscis and stung
>one of the cypraea cauricas!  And he did this while he was
>FULLY RETRACTED into his shell!!!  He didn't eat the cowry,
>as I was in the process of moving them into the aquarium.  I
>dumped Eduardo's victim into the tank anyway, just to see
>what would happen.  The caurica partially retracted into his
>shell, but it almost looked like he wouldn't fit.  He proceeded
>to autotomize about the posterior 25% of his foot!  I've seen
>harps do this, as well as several species of nudibranchs, but
>never cowries.  He then remained on the bottom of the tank,
>motionless, for the next two hours.  I went and bought lobsters
>for dinner, removed the tails, and then fabricated a little scoop
>to get the dead cowry out of the tank, but...when I went in
>to remove him, he wasn't where I had left him.  In fact, he had
>crawled to the top of the tank.  It wasn't hard to tell which one
>he was, as only one of the cowries was missing a quarter of
>his foot!
>
>More updates as the saga unfolds.
>
>Sorry not to include any philosophical or morality statements,
>only shell stuff in this post.  Disclaimer:  Character names are
>all purely fictitious.  Any resemblance to actual persons, living
>or dead, is purely coincidental...
>
>Cheers from Pago Pago,
>
>
>
>
>Don
>