Hi Tom, and James and all,
 
The Emily Vokes article on the generic assignment of the Muricidae is still
up, and it is at
 
<http://coa.acnatsci.org/conchnet/ev-muric.html>
 
in the section on selected reprints from American Conchologist articles.
Something must just have gone wonky with the web today. It was awfully busy
and running like molasses in my part of the world. No doubt because of the
political events of the day.
 
Lynn Scheu
Louisville, KY
Home of the 1999 Conchologists of America Convention
"Louisville, Your Kind of Place"
 
>James,
>
>Drupa used to be in the family Thaididae (still are in my collection but
>I'll get it straightened out in 20 or so years) but are now placed in the
>subfamily Rapaninae (still Thaidinae to some) under the family Muricidae.
>According to Emily H. Volkes  ("One Last Look at the Muricidae" in an
>article on the COA web page) there are 5 species of Drupa, 4 of Ricinella,
>and 2 of Drupina.  So if you are just talking the genus Drupa, I don't think
>any are very rare.  I couldn't find the Volkes article on the COA page, it
>may have been taken off (glad I made a hard copy) but I recommend you check
>out the site.  This link will take you to the Conchology 101 section of COA
>by Dr. Gary Rosenberg.  This is perhaps the most concise, easy to understand
>overview of this subject you will ever find.  As for the rest, use the web.
>If you had run a search for drupa you would surely have found Hardy's site
>with all of his pictures and he would reference Poppe's site.
>
>Look for images at:
>
>http://www.club.innet.be/~year0078/
>
>http://www.gastropods.com/shell_pages/Taxon_pages/Family_MURICIDAE_RAPANINA
E.html
>
>The first site is Guido Poppe's page where you need to go to look for any
>shell images, he has thousnads and thousands of quality images.  The second
>site is Eddie Hardy's site and will link right to the Drupa list.  He only
>list gastropods but has thousands of images.  Both sites will give you the
>taxonomic status of a shell, a species list (easiest to use on Poppe's
>site), and references (easiest to use on Hardy's site).
>
>As for rare, I don't think so but there are a couple of Drupa that are
>uncommon and not seen very often.
>
>Tom Eichhorst in New Mexico, USA
>
>