Dear all,
A few years ago, a good friend of mine (Prof. Tony Klein) was on business in
Japan and picked up a calligraphy set. He also had with him a Conus virgo
that he had taken with him having picked it up some months earlier while on
a field trip with me at Lizard Island, North Queensland. To help pass time
on the long flight from Tokyo to Melbourne he inscribed a wonderful pattern
on the shell and then when he next saw me, he presented it to me as a new
purchase, "a possibly new species of Conus ?" -  and asked me to identify it
for him. Of course I could not, but was fooled into thinking the shell
pattern was for real. After 10 minutes of suppressed mirth he came clean and
handed me a magnifying glass for a closer inspection. To my amazement I saw
that he had inscribed in micro font my family name multiple times to form a
diagonal pattern on the surface of the shell. With a good deal of
satisfaction and glee he presented this magnificent, 'one of a kind', new
species of Conus to me - which he named 'Conus inscriptus livettatus'. It
takes pride of place in my modest collection  :)

Bruce Livett


----- Original Message -----
From: "Lynn Scheu" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Friday, April 05, 2002 12:11 AM
Subject: Re: Shell Pranks


> Ross,
>
> Maybe a lot of us have not played any shell pranks. But if you had asked
> us what shelling mistakes we had made, or stupid shelly things we had
> done that we regretted later, we might be more forthcoming.
>