Dear Lynn et al.,

Here is the way I look at H. cinerea salleana:

Hastula cinerea salleana  (Deshayes, 1859)  Sallé’s Auger  [abundant]  43 mm.
maximum size
In northeast Florida area from:
Swash zone, S.E. Cumberland Is., GA. BH! 7/90. (BH) to swash zone, 1.0 mi. N.
Crescent Beach. HL,HM! 1974-84. (HM,HL).
As well as borrow pit, 12 mi. W. St. Augustine, 40 ft. (Pleistocene). FC!
7/20/78. (FC,HL).
Enlarges known range vs. Abbott (1974): “Northwest Florida to Texas and Vera
Cruz, Mexico, Brazil.” From June to August this species appears in the swash
zone and, especially in July, can be found in copula. This taxon is greatly
misunderstood in the literature; the Carolinian subspecies is H. c. salleana,
which intergrades with H. c. cinerea in S.E. Florida and on the Caribbean coast
of northern Central America. Pleistocene shells exceed 50 mm. in length. The
nominotypical subspecies envenomates and then consumes (whole) polychaete worms
(Marcus and Marcus, 1960); Humfrey’s (1975) report of H. c. c. feeding on Donax
clams is viewed with skepticism.

I would liken the mating ritual to the Kerr-Lancaster style as suggested by
Lynn.

Humfrey, M., 1975.  Sea shells of the West Indies: a guide to the marine
mollusks of the Caribbean. Taplinger Publishing Co., New York, pp. 1-351 + 32
pls.
Marcus, Evelyn and Ernst Marcus, 1960.  On Hastula cinerea. Bol. Fac. Fil.
Zool.
de São Paulo 23: 25-54 incl. 5 pls.

Harry


At 09:54 AM 7/12/00 -0400, you wrote:
>Bill and all,
>
>Bill Frank wrote at the end of his post on Strombus pugilis v. alatus:
>> The Hastula cinera salleana are now swarming the N. E. Florida beaches
>> by the millions and can be found virtually everywhere on the beach.  It is
>> a yearly event where they congregate on the beach for breeding.  Throwing
>> them back into the surf wouldn't be doing them a favor.
>> http://www.mindspring.com/~strombus/terebra.htm
>
>Forgive the topic shift. These animals have always fascinated me because
>of their lifestyle...digging in and being washed out by the next wave.
>So you sent me reading:
>
>I had always heard that they are there to feed on coquinas (Donax
>variabilis). Indeed, I have once found one (I thought) feasting on same.
>Who knows what it was really doing since I read in Bratcher and
>Cernohorsky's 1987 Living Terebras of the World that they actually feed
>on small polychaete worms (Siphonidae and Opheliidae). In any case I am
>glad to know about this breeding time/behavior...somehow it never
>occurred to me that they'd come ashore, like marine mammals, to breed.
>Do you mean they are (alive) all over the beach in the surf or all over
>the beach on dry sand? (The strombus alatus we threw back on Carl
>Johnson beach were, many of them, up in the dry sand, at high tideline
>or above, where they'd crawled.)
>
>RE feeding:
>Bratcher says that this group of terebrids (genus Hastula) actually
>spend their lives "on surf-washed beaches throughout the tropics,
>occupying the same microhabitat as Donax [thus the misconception about
>their prey], and others are found just beyond the breakers."  They
>detect their prey by chemo-reception.  When the propodium of the foot
>comes in contact with the prey, the animal lunges, injecting its
>poisonous radular tooth. [I bet a lot of people thought only cones had
>poisonous teeth! A couple of the subfamilies of the Turridae do too!]
>The terebra then burrows down in the sand, taking its captive home to
>dinner. Bratcher says, "Prey capture is usually completed between the
>passage of two successive waves."
>
>Southern Synthesis (Superfamily Conoidea by A. J. Kohn) adds
>interestingly to this information:
>"Members of the genus Hastula differ from other terebrids in having a
>large, flexible, fleshy foot with a broad propodium. They crawl rapidly
>on sand (20 to 30 steps/min) and use another locomotor method absent in
>other terebrids: the foot is extended broadly and functions as a sail
>that catches waves in the surf zone, carrying the animal rapidly up and
>down the beach." A figure showing six steps in their locomotion is
>included. (The figure is drawn after B.A. Miller's 1979 article in
>Pacific Science, The Biology of Hastula inconstans...." 33: 289-306.) I
>can scan this drawing  and send it to anyone interested, provided they
>ask off-list.
>
>RE breeding:
>Not to be voyeuristic or anything, but how do they manage? There is not
>much time between waves to locate an opposite-sexed mate. And then
>there's the always-approaching next wave to contend with! Bratcher only
>gives us: "Some species mate beneath the sand, others on the surface."
>Perhaps the large numbers help? Kohn in Southern Synthesis offers more
>(citing Miller's study)info, at least on Hastula inconstans which has a
>similar lifestyle to H. cinerea and H. salleana:
>
>"...mating occurs on the sand surface while the pair rolls back and
>forth in the surge. (Didn't they already do this in "From Here To
>Eternity"?) Females attach egg capsules, about 1 mm across, to coarse
>grains of sand about the same size, just seaward of the surf zone. Each
>capsule contains about 40 eggs and development is probably direct."
>
>Thanks for stimulating a biology lesson for me, Bill!
>
>Lynn Scheu
>Louisville KY

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:
http://home.sprynet.com/~wfrank/jacksonv.htm

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