i had the chance to visit Chincoteague again this past weekend....the bay
water was quite warm and there was lots more seaweed than in April. The
large urosalpinx were present but quite cryptic, being attached deep within
clumps of oysters or buried in mud, and not out in the open as during my
last visit. i saw no large Eupleura caudata, nor any Nassarius vibex or the
various small bivalves from before, eg Tellina, Tagelus.

A visit to Wachapreague VA earlier in the same day was more rewarding. Big
shells like Busycons and Hooked mussels were again plentiful. Shell piles
and debris there had good amounts of smaller shells, eg nice sized
Nassarius vibex. As always, N. vibex is greatly outnumbered by the many
more Ilyanassa obsoleta, from which i was able to pick quite a few clean,
uneroded nicely banded and colorful individuals. Again both Anachis
(colorful avara , and lafresnayi) were easy to find. The best surprise was
some very nice Jersey Marginellas (Prunum roscidum), these appear to have
fallen out of traps some time ago onto the ground with Nassarius
trivitattus, those that were partially covered by debris or which rolled
under stacked traps retained their color, while those out in the open were
quite faded/worn. Another nice find- surprised they werent around on my
last visit- were three massive specimens of what i think have been shown
genetically to be Stramonita canaliculata. These are about 3.5 to 4 inches
long. I had previously  found references online that show these have been
turning up in Maryland and Virginia for some time now.

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