>I just returned from Thailand where the fishermen were throwing out
>lots of noble volutes and Spondylus and other goodies. Fouling their
>nets. Their trash and my treasure.
>
>Found 4 watering pots in the middens. I don't have the Latin name on
>hand. Is there much known about the animal and the function of this
>strange structure? I did find the tiny bivalve along the anterior of
>the tube.

Family Clavagellidae, living genera Clavagella, Humphreyia, Brechites
(with subgenus Penicillus). I have just collected a large early
Miocene Clavagella...

Some have both valves fused to the crypt; some have one large valve
free within the crypt (as does my fossil). Technically the crypt/tube
is actually a true shell, not a lined burrow as in Teredinidae
shipworms.

They live in quiet soft-sediment environments, with the crypt
(swollen closed anterior end) buried and the siphonal opening
exposed. If exhumed by abnormal conditions (eg typhoon
waves/currents) they can survive; these specimens tend to have the
siphons bent upward at an angle.
--
Andrew Grebneff
165 Evans St, Dunedin, New Zealand
64 (3) 473-8863
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Fossil preparator
Seashell, Macintosh & VW/Toyota van nut