Thanks, Andrew.

I didn't get to any mangroves! I thought they were so ubiquitous last time
that I'd surely get to them this time. I didn't find them on Ko Tao or Ko
Samui in the Gulf of Thailand.

Maybe there's something else you'd be interested in.

Let me get some of my satchel unpacked and processed. I'll let you know some
of my goodies.

David

> From: Andrew Grebneff <[log in to unmask]>
> Reply-To: Conchologists of America List <[log in to unmask]>
> Date: Fri, 30 May 2003 23:15:14 +1200
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: watering pots
>
>> 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
> <[log in to unmask]>
> Fossil preparator
> Seashell, Macintosh & VW/Toyota van nut