Ah! Mr. Goldberg has anticipated my third segment about the
cowries being a possible indicator of “further regression of the
most recent Ice Age” (an restatement of the phrase that started
all of this).

Yet another factor which may--by itself or with others--be altering
the food sources of cowries on the leeward shore of Oahu, Hawaii
is the increased (and still increasing!) human population. Any of
us long-term divers in these waters know of the heavier plankton
population--fed by some nutrients washed from the land, but
certainly pumped out by sewage treatment plants. We watched the
visibility at Makua in particular, and the upper Waianae coast in
general, drop from nearly 300 feet to about 100 feet...
on a GOOD day.

Now, to make this change--whatever it is--more puzzling, it must
mentioned that other databases of cowries from Makua's sea floor
confirmed that these shells were truly getting bigger nowadays.
That's just what I got from Cypraea helvola and C. fimbriata,
two other common Indo-Pacific cowries of which I have lagre
enough numbers of dead- and live-collected specimens to consider
the data reliable. Had I wanted only to 'hammer' home the concept
of _worldwide temperature rise_ , I would have stopped there.

But, the endemic Hawaiian cowries told the opposite tale--
things are worse now than in the past. Cypraea tessellata,
C. sulcidentata and C. schilderorum (not strictly a Hawaiian
endemic species) are smaller than before! It would seem that
the change in... What? Available food, water temperature,
predators (more or fewer)... favors some Indo-Pacific cowries
over the endemics.

Concerning the continuous variation in _worldwide temperatures_ ,
I am likewise aware that many factors are pushing the thermometers
upward. In the days following the World Trade Center and Pentagon
disasters, some of us noted the then-cleared skies over America
returned to the wispy, fractal-like cloud formations which were
typical before high-flying jets began constantly clouding up the
heavens. Studies done during that short, clear time confirmed the
effects that aircraft were having on the land beneath them.
Also, the sun is at sunspot maximum... again. We have just been
'treated' to a double sunspot maximum; surely that puts extra
heat into the equation.

There seem to be no easy answer but there are some hints.


Aloha,

Bob Dayle (a.k.a. 'makuabob')
http://www.cowrys.org

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