Siargao Island Shell Netting - Update

Well, this is sort of an end of term report, because the Amihan (North East
Monsoon) winds are coming on, and winter cometh. It doth cometh too; quite
cold - almost down to a frigid 70°F.

I've spent the last week classifying what we found over the summer (or
rather the Spring and Autumn, with a big break for Alimang's seaweed growing
from July to September and my trying to run a restaurant/bar)and was
pleasantly surprised.

We've picked up somewhat over 160 species. When you count in that more than
50 of those species were semi-micro (less than an inch long, and many of
them very boring indeed) then it doesn't sound very much. But even the very
boring ones have not been totally without anything to recommend them at all.

Take Chama whateveritis ??? - This jewel box (so-called), is, as a
collector's shell, about as boring as a petrified cabbage sprout. It's dull,
brown, and has all the charisma of George Bush, but (really, read on) may be
a little more fascinating.

It must be one of the very few animals (or plants) on the whole planet which
doesn't know which way is UP. That's quite exclusive.

I spent a whole afternoon looking at the hinges (umbones. teeth, and all the
rest of it) of different species of Chama to find out whether the tooth or
the groove was normally on top, only to find that this particular animal
doesn't even care.

It goes both ways. Sometimes it's up, sometimes it's down.

I challenge you to find another animal anywhere (sloths excepted) which
lives like this. How has this creature (which has a small brain, if any at
all) hit on the idea that such a ponderous issue as gravity doesn't even
matter?

With such a simple agenda, do you think it could win the next Presidential
election ?

So far as the netting is going, we seem to have hit the G-spot now - better
things are coming up than ever before (We've found Dinakpan, an armophous
bit of ocean out there beyond the reef, which is a local fishing ground at
certain seasons - it's definitely it).

At a depth of 100m or so, and beyond any shore-based references, even
Alimang, who could find a drowned needle in a flooded haystack, can't hit
the exact spot every time, so every netting is a bit of a chancer. I'm just
resting, and letting him do all the work.

Many days, he finds nothing at all, but a lot of rocks, coralline weed and
junk. We get a lot of Angaria, and a lot of Xenophora (carrier shells) just
because they're spiky.

He brings the boat on shore every other morning or so, just opposite the
school grounds, a bit down the road. Anything that rolls out of the net
easily, like cones or cowries, he keeps in half a plastic Caltex oil bottle.
(The cut-off bottle is an accepted local measure - you buy shelled 'ganga' -
Lambis lambis, to eat a la ceviche - raw - by the Caltex).

Then we sit on the grass and shake out the net, and the school kids crowd
around and pick out the small stuff which I would never see.

Which is why more than 50 of our species are about a half-inch long, or even
less.

This week he came up with a Conus voluminalis (but not quite - something
different) and another of the strange cones which looks like Conus
moluccensis/proximus, but isn't - both alive and kicking. plus another small
cone, only an inch long, quite unidentifiable, with a concave spire, wider
in the body than the shouldres, very delicate, pink coloured, possibly a
juvenile of something, but what ?

(We don't get a lot of cones - they're not stupid enough to wander into a
net. Nor are cowries, but we got a little Cypraea beckii just yesterday). We
get a lot of cone fragments, which are intriguing - which cone has a pink
base, brown flammules, and a round shoulder ?

He also got our first live Spondylus imbutus, a beautiful little red thing,
with very delicate fronds.

Last week he got the most beautiful Harpa harpa I've ever seen (red, with
blood-red lines, and belly markings which might make a certain Mr Kajiyama
commit harikiri) - it's certainly on the gradient between Harpa harpa and
Harpa kajiyamai, with the sculpture of one - flat, swept-back ribs,
serrations on the lip - and the markings of the other.

We're not having much luck with finding ordinary, common or garden Harpa
major to compare with the strange one we caught earlier this year. We only
get very dead beaten-up ones or fragments - but all are very different to
that strange one.

Now,I think it's time we started dredging - if Hugh Cuming found it useful
150 years ago then it might work now - the local technology hasn't changed
very much, except we now have boat engines to pull the damned things along.
Netting is very hapahazard, so we might as well try a bit of a more
pro-active method.

Two big questions:

1) How do we design a dredge which can be put down 100 metres, by hand,
behind only a 14HP motor, and how do we get it up again ?

2) Where, exactly, is the radula on a Conus ? Could I examine them with a
magnifying glass ?

(A kayabang (small coconut crab) has just wandered in across my living-room
floor, so it must be coming up to full moon - we'll have to organise a night
dive off Pansukian (Naked Island) reef and find some of the shells that only
come out at night).

Best regards

Richard Parker

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