Hi Paul, Tom, and all other interested parties,

The server that has the photos on it was down
for a few hours today, but it is supposedly back
up and running now.

I managed to get a look at the photo of Micromelo
guamensis in the Hawaiian Marine Shells, and the
animal description sounds about right, so I'm going
to call the guy guamensis.  Thanks for all the effort,
Paul!  And thanks to Tom for the lineata photo, it's
obviously a first cousin to the Micromelo.

I thought the little Micromelo was rather pretty, but
my sister found him "hideous."  I don't know if the
photo REALLY looked like a turtle climbing over a
dead jackrabbit that had been hit by a truck, but I
do see the resemblance.

For your comment, Tom, they had better have re-
medial Air Traffic Control training when I get back
to the states.  I only vaguely remember what a
radar scope looks like.

Those of you who followed Cone Wars may be in-
terested to know how my aquarium residents fared
while I was away for 14 weeks.  I had left Art and
Paul Textile, as well as Ross Canonicus and Gary
Omaria in the tank, and my buddy Randy agreed
to drop a few cowries in occasionally to keep them
occupied.  When I returned to Samoa, I found 17
empty cowry shells in the tank (including annulus,
erosa, caurica, helvola, arabica, and caputserpentis),
an empty oliva miniacea shell, and one empty cone
shell.  Apparently poor Gary Omaria ran out of luck
while navigating the conus textile minefield.

Art, Paul, and Ross appear to be in good health.  I
went snorkeling for a few hours yesterday to see if
I could catch a few cowries for their entertainment,
and came home with five cypraea erosa, five c.kieneri,
two c. annulus, one c. isabella, one c. caputserpentis,
and a serious pale-Texan sunburn.  On a tip from
Chris Takahashi, I also collected a few cymatium
species just to see how the cones would react.  I
brought home five cymatium mundum, one c. hepat-
icum, one c. nicobaricum, and a gyrineum gyrinum.

I dumped all of these in the aquarium, along with
three latirus barclayi and two latirus craticulatus.
The cones obviously realized the tank had some
new residents, as they were all out crawling within
a matter of minutes.  Ross staked out the gyrineum,
Art went after a cypraea erosa, and Paul headed
straight for the biggest latirus barclayi.  Ross never
managed to subdue his prey, and I'm not sure if Art
had any luck either, but Paul did.  He had harpooned
the latirus within a few minutes of his arrival, and had
extracted him within fifteen minutes.  He wasn't full,
apparently, as he went straight from the latirus to a
smallish cymatium mundum, and had finished him
off within another fifteen minutes.  It looks like a
well-balanced conus textile diet may include a lot
more than cowries.

Hasta...,



Don
Just west of Pala Lagoon


----------
> From: Thomas E. Eichhorst <[log in to unmask]>
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: Micromelo undatus--links
> Date: Tuesday, September 07, 1999 11:18 AM
>
> Don,
>
> The site worked fine for me and it looks like it might be Bullina lineata
> (Gray, 1825).  Yours has wavier lines than the specimen in the Compendium
> but this may be within the range of variability for them.  It was a great
> picture of the living animal however.
>
> So it's back to the "grind" in paradise, eh?  Must have been tough to talk
> to folks in Texas and have to admit you literally work in an island
> paradise!  And just think, you could be directing traffic at O'Hare or some
> other equally fun-filled spot.  Of course by the time you complete your tour
> in Samoa you will have lost your real traffic controller abilities.  Do they
> have a remedial school?
>
> Joking aside, it was great to meet you at COA, now remember not to let the
> job (or wife and kid) interfere with those diving duties and maybe a
> different version or sequel to Cone Wars.
>
> See ya,
>
> Tom Eichhorst in New Mexico, USA
>
>