>Betty, please, come over to the Middle East and teach our Tritons how to
>clean themselves.
>Especially those from the Red Sea are usually completely covered with
>foreign growth except for the immediate surroundings of the aperture. Also
>those from the Eastern Mediterranean are always covered with foreign growth.
>How can we explain this apparent different behaviour?

Fiji too... I collected a C. pileare on a Suva mudflat. What I found
was a 20cm-diameter 5cm-thick disc of sponge. I picked it up and into
the center of the undersurface was an orange aperture and operculum!
Nothing else was visible of the shell. It had a perfect periostracum
too, once cleaned.
--
Andrew Grebneff
165 Evans St, Dunedin 9001, New Zealand
<[log in to unmask]>
Seashell, Macintosh, VW/Toyota van nut