Dear Conch-Lers,

I am glad to announce that we just uploaded the one-hundredth species onto
the "Seashells of Sanibel and Captiva" section of the Shell Museum Web
site. As you can easily check by hitting
www.shellmuseum.org/sanibel_shells.html, each entry includes more than one
view as well as brief information such as family name, maximum size
locally, and the common name adopted by the American Fisheries
Society/American Malacological Society for that species. Enjoy the images;
comments and suggestions would be most welcome.

We illustrate only specimens from Sanibel, Captiva, and neighboring shallow
water areas; there are no pictures of "better-looking" specimens of the
locally occurring species from other areas to enhance the looks of the
project (e.g., the local sunrise tellins may look pale in comparison to
specimens from the Florida Keys). In a nutshell (!), what you see is what
can (or could) be collected in our part of mother ocean. In addition, I am
choosing to illustrate only species represented in the Shell Museum
collection by more than one lot. The goal is to offer images of around 300
shallow-water species (including micromollusks) by the end of 2003, and
later to include brief descriptions with them (these are almost all ready).
The results could also be published as a field guide to the mollusks of
Southwest Florida, but that is contingent on acquisition of financial
support, etc.

I want to thank the Sanibel-Captiva Shell Club for lending financial and
moral support to this effort in particular and to the Research and
Collection Department of the Museum in general; we just received a research
grant from SCSC to purchase a Nikon D100 reflex digital camera and
accessories (6.1 megapixel resolution and innumerable other perks!)
Needless to say, it's been hard for Museum staff to get me away from the
photo room to tend to administrative chores these last few days.

Happy Holidays,

José

José H. Leal, Ph.D.
Director, The Bailey-Matthews Shell Museum
Editor, THE NAUTILUS
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www.shellmuseum.org
3075 Sanibel-Captiva Road
Sanibel, FL 33957 USA
(239) 395-2233; fax (239) 395-6706