Andrew Grebneff wrote" Any species will be extremely rare when first
discovered, no matter that there
may be millions of specimens down there.

I could imagine when gmelin or lamarck stood upon the beach and picked the
first ever seen coquina, aw the color , the shape, this must be rare , then
he looked down , enough said . I once sat down on Anna Maria island and
marveled at the color and diversity of the coquina. . aw the early days of
collecting when a simple shell was enough to make one notice. (La ferret
1999)



>:
>
>> Regarding extremely rare shells, I must agree with Guido Poppe. There are
>> lots of new species out there waiting to be found, and he who finds the
>> first specimen of one has a specimen of the first-equal rarest species. >
>> Andrew
>
>Essentially, I cannot disagree with that either.  However, I think that
>shells are generally just as common as their habits allow them to be.  I
>have noticed this on my serious collecting trips.
>
>I believe one reason why many Scaphellas are uncommon is because they
>are higher up in the food chain.  They have been known to prey upon
>other shells.  Of course Scaphella junonia have been commonly hauled in
>as bycatch by the commercial seafood industry.  Some of the areas which
>they trawl have an incredibly abundant amount of seashells.  Therefore,
>a higher amount of predators will be found along with them.  Other
>predators like octopus will prey upon Scapellas and other mollusks.
>Thus, this also will keep the number of Scaphellas in a given area down.
>
>I wonder how many Andrews there are on Conch-l.
>
>Andrew Dickson
>