Dear Doug & conchologists,


the Cymbiola cathcartiae all come from the Zamboanga area.

There are no specimen from further north than this area. The very
exact locality of the species is unknown. I checked our databases and
we got one shell from Martin collection from "south Cebu", this is
obviously not correct and one Siquijor. The latter I corrected. All
other specimen are labeled Zamboanga and some with the extra
"Laminusa Island" as we usually get them from fishermen from Laminusa
Island, which does not mean they live there, but probably not far
away from there.

The very exact localities are kept secret and in your case the dealer
can have bought the shell on Balicasag Island as the people from
Balicasag exchange a lot of shells with the dealers from Mactan
Island. The shells from Zamboanga most often end up in Mactan Island.
 From where...

The group of large Cymbiola which deserve a separate subgenus consist
of C. aulica, C. cathcartiae, C. palawanica and C. malayensis.  All
these Cymbiola have rather small ranges kept very secret except for
C. palawanica where we know that the species is found from Puerto
Princesa (Palawan) north to Coron (also Palawan) and the Cuyo's. But
the correct localities of the obviously constant patterned
populations are also kept secret. We know that the form with the
black spots are all from the Cuyo Islands between Palawan and Mindoro.
The C. malayensis, I'm not sure that the species lives actually in
the Philippines. If it does, only near Jolo Island and Tawi Tawi. An
area where white people cannot go for the moment.  Most probably the
center of the distribution is along the northern tip of Borneo as
I've seen dead specimen with other very obvious local shells in the
airport in a souvenir shop in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah.

As time goes and constant questioning of fishermen goes on, locality
data become more and more correct for Philippine shells. The best way
to learn is to visit and collect yourselves. Up till now I dived
together with Philippe about 250 localities in 1230 dives since 2003,
but all are limited from northern Panay south to north Surigao and
Aliguay, west to Negros and east to Ticao Island. Our experience is
limited to what one can find down to 30 m as we seldom dive deeper.
We get an idea from hooka divers here and there of what is deeper.
Sometimes we get surprises: last week I dived 3 Spondylus imbutus
(form of regius ?) in only 34 m in Dinagat Island. I always thought
this shell is 80 m or deeper as most of the material comes with
tangle nets...   The problem below 30 m is the time limit. When
saturated from successive dives we often get less than 10 minutes at
35 m.

A general misunderstanding in the west is that people think shells
are all over the Philippines: this is untrue, most shells have
limited ranges and most species are uncommon to rare. Imagine that I
dived only 5 Cypraea walkeri in 1230 dives (of which at least 300
night dives). Only one dead Cypraea pallidula and we never could find
a living Cypraea argus or a living Cypraea testudinaria. Few dead
ones. Cypraea mauritiana we found one living specimen on Mactan
Island in 5 years. (but in the Marquesas I dived at least a hundred a
day 6 years ago: they are there by the tens of thousands). Some
species have habitats that are to be discovered. A good example is
Cypraea onyx: this species is specialised together with some other
animals in empty coconut shells. From where the color of the shell
and the color of the living animal. We call it the "coconut" fauna,
as one will always find the same shells, the same shrimps and the
same fish and the same Galathea lobsters in the coconuts.

Some good news that will help: the first volume of the upcoming new
Philippine book goes in print soon (one month from now) and will
probably be on the market in 3 months from now, there are 20 authors
"in Poppe" who contributed. The next volumes are in final stages and
I trust all will be published by May next year - 3 volumes showing
over 3600 species in many more thousands of photos. We did not
indicate ranges but the very best we know from where each individual
shell comes from. And hundreds of photos of living animals.

Guido

On 11 4, 07, at 5:56 PM, Doug Stemke wrote:

> Hello All.
>
>   I have been haveing several data issues from a dealer out of the
> Philippines to the point it is hard for me to trust anything from him
> now.  I recently purchased a Cymbiola aulica cathcartiae from him
> from 'Balicag Island, Bohol'.  My only good reference Weaver &
> Dupont's 'The Living Volutes' (rather dated reference) puts the range
> further south off Mindanao and Zamboanga. So those of you with better
> references, is his data possibly accurate?
>
> Some of the other data issues have been blatant locality errors or
> errors
> where where one locality was offered a second locality actually
> came with
> the shell.  So I'd like to know if there is some merit to my most
> recent
> data concern or if I need to apologize to the dealer.
>
> Thank you.
>
> Doug
>

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