Folks,
  I recently received two limpets from a friend.  he collected them while
he was in california walking along the "beach".  The location was Half
Moon Bay, San Mateo County, California, USA.  The specimens are worn but
for all the world appear to be Patella saccharina Linne, 1758.  This is
not a high tourist area, nor a local that appears to be visited frequently
by shell collectors (let me know if I'm wrong) so I doubt these were
seeded by a local hotel.  Two questions that I would like to pose to the
group:

1) Does anyone know if this taxon has been introduced to california?  All
sources that I've checked do not list it as such including Turgeon, et al.

2)  If there is an endemic taxon that resembles P. saccharina, and which I
might be overlooking, please let me know what it is so I can look up its
description and an illustration and see if it fits.

Thanks.

Charlie
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Charlie Sturm, Jr
Research Associate - Section of Invertebrate Zoology
                     Carnegie Museum of Natural History, Pittsburgh, PA
Assistant Professor - Family Medicine

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