Hi Andrew,
        Yes, I was requested samples of the bivalves that we chipped by
Forreria several years ago.  There was a woman in S. California doing a
study on various feeding methods and found that I was keeping a Forreria in
my tank. The bivalves all had the same chipping on the outer edge of the
shell. Kinda like playing Sherlock Holmes.
Dan



>>Hi Andrew,
>>         Your thoughts are correct.  In the past nine years I have had in
>>our marine tank a Forreria belcheri (Muricidae) and have watched it grow.
>>As a species with both a labial tooth and spines they grow in small
>>increments.  While the labial tooth is absent at times, the animal does not
>>eat but when the tooth begins to appear he/she becomes voracious.  When we
>>first got "Hungry", as my wife calls him/her, he ate every bivalve in
>>sight, from small Donax gouldi from the beach to  Mahogany Clams from the
>>market.  After about a month of constant eating, he would slow down and
>>rest until a new tooth had formed and he had grown another few millimeters.
>>Looking clsely at the shell you can see many incremental growth lines on
>>the shell.
>>Dan Yoshimoto
>
>Hi Dan
>
>Some would consider the varices of forreria and trophonines as not
>true varices, but I'd beg to differ.
>
>Your observations are interesting, that is, the animal's fasting
>whilst the tooth is absent. The implication is that F. belcheri
>depends entirely on the labral tooth for feeding. I'd have expected
>it to eat gastropods or bore clams betweentimes, but it looksa s
>though you've looked at this carefully. Have you pased this on to the
>relevant workers? You may well be the only one who has kept the
>species under observation.
>
>Beautiful shells, too!
>--
>Regards
>Andrew

Dan, Hiromi & Kuma Yoshimoto
1164 Vista Dr.
Eureka, California
95503-6018
U.S.A.