I have in my collection 23 species of mollusks
plus 5 brachiopods originally dredged by the
Blacks and obtained second- or
third-hand. However, this includes a Siratus
thompsoni from French Guyana, so the Black
reference there must be highly questionable.
Similarly, 11 species dredged by Jim Moore, including one fossil.
And 9 micro bivalves dredged by Ted Yocius.
John
Lancaster, PA
At 11:48 AM 10/09/14, you wrote:
>Sue,
>
>In the late 1960’s into the early 1970’s
>several shrimpers dredged shell material in the
>off season. Jim Moore of the Sarasota area did
>shallow water dredging on “live bottom” to
>180’ in the Gulf, Ted Yocius dredged off St.
>Augustine, but the deep water material was from
>Donna and Riley Black in Fort Myers area. There
>was also someone who did some small dredging in
>the early 1970’s in the Keys but sold shells
>in small lots and not in bushels, which is where
>I got a Pterynotus phaneus (Dall 1889), which was a rare shell then.
>
>My parents (Jake and Ethel) made arrangements to
>pick up a couple of bushels from the
>Blacks. The Blacks were very hospitable,
>showing them a lot of shells but the Blacks told
>them “the rare ones” were in a safe deposit
>box. Our family bought about five bushels over
>the years. The material from off Desoto Canyon
>in 100 fathoms was remarkably similar in all the
>bushels. Shells were in a dry, but somewhat
>musty smell I remember to this day of the ocean,
>consisting of gray broken shell rubble and light gray sand.
>
>By some coincidence (?) a Stenorhytis pernobilis
>Fischer & Bernardi, 1857 was often found in the
>middle of the bushels a few inches down from the
>top, never more than one in varying conditions
>from old gray ones with chipped spines to one
>with an operculum. The predominate shells were
>the Murex beaui (Fischer & Bernardi, 1857), many
>with operculum but none with the super-flaring
>webbed varicies. The other very common shells
>were the Aequipecten glyptus (Verrill, 1882)
>entire and of different sizes, and the Scaphella
>which was always very dead and never could get a
>good one. Also there were a lot of the deep
>water Xeonophra Tugurium caribaeum (Petit,
>1856). The large Dentalium, Conus villepini
>Fischer and Bernardi, 1857 were there in some
>numbers. Rarer were, Conus mazei Deshayes,1874,
>Poirieri pazi (Crosse, 1869), Pteropurpura
>bequaerti (Clench & Farfante, 1945) and Murex
>hidalgo Crosse,1869. Also a medium sized turrid,
>but curiously there were no really small or micro shells that I remember.
>
>Since this was such a rare treat to look for
>deep water shells, we would save the grunge and
>go through the material over and over. This is
>just what quickly comes to mind of an event 45
>years ago with no attempt to update current
>nomenclature. It would be so much fun if
>economic conditions allowed shrimpers again to
>dredge deep water shells to sell by the bushel.
>
>
>
>Alan Gettleman
>
>Merritt Island, FL
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