>Here's an amateurish question for you:  What conchological
>characteristics would cause Siphocypraea to be considered
>ovulids?  I just dug out all of my ovulids and Jenneria, and
>I don't see any obvious characteristics
>
>OF SIPHOCYPRAEA VAUGHANI
>
>that would make me
>say, "Hey, this ain't no cowry..."  The folds on the anterior
>tip of Sulcocypraea do look somewhat like the other ovulids,
>and the "fossular area" isn't exactly like the cypraea, but
>it's not much like the other ovulids either.  Is this what sets
>them apart?


I am not certain.  One possibility (rather useful for distinguishing the
internal molds of Cypraeorbis and Cypraedia common here in the Eocene of
the Carolinas) is that juvenile shells or the inside of adult shells are
evolute in typical cypraeids and involute in typical ovulids.  I have not
tried looking inside any of my Sulcocypraea specimens to find out.


David Campbell

"Old Seashells"

Department of Geological Sciences
CB 3315 Mitchell Hall
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Chapel Hill NC 27599-3315
USA

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919-962-0685
FAX 919-966-4519

"He had discovered an unknown bivalve, forming a new genus"-E. A. Poe, The
Gold Bug