Fabio Moretzsohn wrote:

> I wonder how mollusks [in Florida] cope with unusual cold. If it's a
> just short cold snap, they may survive. But in the early 1990's there
> was a freeze that killed a lot of mollusks.

* in December 1985 we were on Haida Gwaii (the Queen Charlotte Islands)
when there was a severe cold spell, or as they say, "the subarctic
convergence came across the mountains," and the beaches were littered,
half a metre deep in some places, with dead fish, and Molluscs, and
other invertebrates, including Octopus and Abalones and Gumboot Chitons.
In 1988 we were there again when there was a -20C cold snap, and this
time the dead invertebrates on the beaches were mostly Crabs, as if the
big Molluscs hadn't had time to replenish their populations in the
vulnerable subtidal zone. Cold-killed Cancer magister is just as
delicious as cold-killed Octopus, however.

fred.
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            Bishops Mills Natural History Centre
          Frederick W. Schueler & Aleta Karstad
       RR#2 Bishops Mills, Ontario, Canada K0G 1T0
    on the Smiths Falls Limestone Plain 44* 52'N 75* 42'W
      (613)258-3107 <bckcdb at istar.ca> http://pinicola.ca
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If we'd been meant to refer to species by made-up vernacular names,
God wouldn't have created Linnaeus!
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