Bill and all,

Bill Frank wrote at the end of his post on Strombus pugilis v. alatus:
> The Hastula cinera salleana are now swarming the N. E. Florida beaches
> by the millions and can be found virtually everywhere on the beach.  It is
> a yearly event where they congregate on the beach for breeding.  Throwing
> them back into the surf wouldn't be doing them a favor.
> http://www.mindspring.com/~strombus/terebra.htm

Forgive the topic shift. These animals have always fascinated me because
of their lifestyle...digging in and being washed out by the next wave.
So you sent me reading:

I had always heard that they are there to feed on coquinas (Donax
variabilis). Indeed, I have once found one (I thought) feasting on same.
Who knows what it was really doing since I read in Bratcher and
Cernohorsky's 1987 Living Terebras of the World that they actually feed
on small polychaete worms (Siphonidae and Opheliidae). In any case I am
glad to know about this breeding time/behavior...somehow it never
occurred to me that they'd come ashore, like marine mammals, to breed.
Do you mean they are (alive) all over the beach in the surf or all over
the beach on dry sand? (The strombus alatus we threw back on Carl
Johnson beach were, many of them, up in the dry sand, at high tideline
or above, where they'd crawled.)

RE feeding:
Bratcher says that this group of terebrids (genus Hastula) actually
spend their lives "on surf-washed beaches throughout the tropics,
occupying the same microhabitat as Donax [thus the misconception about
their prey], and others are found just beyond the breakers."  They
detect their prey by chemo-reception.  When the propodium of the foot
comes in contact with the prey, the animal lunges, injecting its
poisonous radular tooth. [I bet a lot of people thought only cones had
poisonous teeth! A couple of the subfamilies of the Turridae do too!]
The terebra then burrows down in the sand, taking its captive home to
dinner. Bratcher says, "Prey capture is usually completed between the
passage of two successive waves."

Southern Synthesis (Superfamily Conoidea by A. J. Kohn) adds
interestingly to this information:
"Members of the genus Hastula differ from other terebrids in having a
large, flexible, fleshy foot with a broad propodium. They crawl rapidly
on sand (20 to 30 steps/min) and use another locomotor method absent in
other terebrids: the foot is extended broadly and functions as a sail
that catches waves in the surf zone, carrying the animal rapidly up and
down the beach." A figure showing six steps in their locomotion is
included. (The figure is drawn after B.A. Miller's 1979 article in
Pacific Science, The Biology of Hastula inconstans...." 33: 289-306.) I
can scan this drawing  and send it to anyone interested, provided they
ask off-list.

RE breeding:
Not to be voyeuristic or anything, but how do they manage? There is not
much time between waves to locate an opposite-sexed mate. And then
there's the always-approaching next wave to contend with! Bratcher only
gives us: "Some species mate beneath the sand, others on the surface."
Perhaps the large numbers help? Kohn in Southern Synthesis offers more
(citing Miller's study)info, at least on Hastula inconstans which has a
similar lifestyle to H. cinerea and H. salleana:

"...mating occurs on the sand surface while the pair rolls back and
forth in the surge. (Didn't they already do this in "From Here To
Eternity"?) Females attach egg capsules, about 1 mm across, to coarse
grains of sand about the same size, just seaward of the surf zone. Each
capsule contains about 40 eggs and development is probably direct."

Thanks for stimulating a biology lesson for me, Bill!

Lynn Scheu
Louisville KY