Dear David,

Probably Sabia conica (Schumacher, 1817).  Splitters place the taxon in
Hipponix, but to the extent that Sabia exists as a generic unit, so does
this binomen; it is the type of Sabia J. E. Gray, 1839.  Gray proposed
Sabia to replace Amalthea Schumacher, 1817, a junior homonym of Amalthea
from the pen of our old friend, Constantine Samuel Rafinesque (1815), who,
three years later, brought us the infamous trivalve discussed on this
list-serve by Andy R. a few months back.

One irksome feature of the behavior of S. c. is its tendency to etch the
surface of the (seashell) substrate as a recess into which the limpet-like
shell of this snail fits snugly.  Such scarring was prominent on Strombus
oldi Emerson, 1965 shells I collected from Somalia, and it seems to be so
frequent a stigma on the shells of Harpa goodwini Rehder, 1993 that dealers
tend not to remove the little commensal pests for fear of revealing this
unsightly excavation.

Harry


At 12:04 PM 1/17/00 -0500, you wrote:
>Folks,
>Does anyone know the name of the ubiquitous cap-shell (Hipponix? or
>whatever the newer name is) that invariably attaches singly or in pairs to
>the parietal area of shallow water gastropods in Sri Lanka?
>
>And how does it "know" how to find the parietal area?
>
>It's about 5mm in diameter, white, with radiating ribs. Apex is elevated
>and pointed to one side.
>
>David Kirsh
>Durham, NC
Harry G. Lee
Suite 500
1801 Barrs St.
Jacksonville, FL 32204
USA   904-384-6419
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Visit the Jacksonville Shell Club Home Page at:
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