This should add spice to your day!! --- A SHELL TOPIC:
Hello 'Fellow Cowrie & Conch-L-er -persons' ---
('The IDIOT' replies --- at the danger of "again becoming a topic of the
'ferreter's tirade' ---- upon "supposed" shell topics)
As you do know --- cowries (and many other 'organisms'), upon feeling
threathened, tend 'pull up their "tents" (mantles) & withdraw their 'natural
protective/sexual devices (Beautiful also to the human genus's eye) ---
'natural appearance' & instead become the 'goal' of some 'live
collector/predator's' whim ----whose interest in them perhaps (& perhaps
only) lies in their beautiful & monetary ( a purely human attitude/value)
position in some collector's case/cabinet' ---
(are we not all 'a beautiful cowrie', in perhaps someone elses cabinet/eyes
?)
Even those (in Austria -- '40 year old child' or not ---) & 'A very
regretful fighter in Canada' &/or even those 'imported INTO Florida'
(dig-dig, -- nudge-nudge ) could learn from this 'maxim' ----
Indirectly, we are all part of the same 'cosmos' ( we are just one of
billions of such events in the same event) --- & way beyond 'human
comprehension' --- (pland/orease contain/curtail your hate for me, --- as I
only saw one genus attacking another of the same !! ---- It then became a
waste of bandwidth !! -
--- please forgive my apparently inappropriate behaviour, (as some have
said) ---
I am new upon the scene (did this happen in the recently last century in
Europa?) ----
AND ----If you ---- Lynn --- are not allowed?
And/or do not to appeciate these 'first amendment views' --- then I am
'totally & finally rebuked' ---- & I will succumb to my 'UEL' heritage (and
altho, I have lived most of my life in the good ol' US of A (borders are
mostly political, (my fore-fathers (fore-persons) go back to the 17th
century in PA) --- & I have so many dear friends there (USA): that for me
there are no borders ---- perhaps I should realize that I am a 'lesser
organism' !!!?
In that case I should retreat to ' the OTHER land of the free' ( being free
is a point of view, my friends) -& become a lesser person!! ----
Sincerely, your 'Northern Idiot' (a ferretism --- but typical of all
bigotry) -----
Craig "the Idiot"
--- Original Message -----
From: "Lynn Scheu" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Sunday, July 30, 2000 10:49 PM
Subject: Red Pigments...was Chicoreus Ramosus Black form?
> Paul and all,
>
> What you said about the red pigments looking black... Cowries offer a
> great example of this: I find the "Porcelaines Mysterieuse de Nouvelle
> Caledonie" the melanistic cowries from Prony Bay, New Caledonia, to be
> fascinating. For you non-cowry collecting folks, these cowries, due to
> some environmental factor (probably nickle mines, but they occur in
> other areas without the nickel factor, like on Tryon Island, Q'ld,
> Philippines, etc.), become very intensely colored to the point, in some
> species, of looking jet black or "Melanistic." They also become very
> rostrate...meaning the two ends of the aperture become extended in
> varying degrees and thickened, even upturned. Extreme examples look sort
> of like Napoleon's hats.
>
> One day I began to wonder why only some cowries become what is referred
> to as "melanistic" in Prony Bay, while other species living side by side
> with them never look black. I began paging through R & G Pierson's
> heavily illustrated book and then J.M. Chatenay's book on the same
> subject, "Porcelaines Niger et Rostrees de Nouvelle Caledonie" (Niger
> and Rostrate Cowries of New Caledonia). Finally it hit me, from looking
> at "color series" all the way to black, that those very jet black
> Cypraea cribraria are really not black...they are just a deep
> concentration of red pigment laid down til they look quite black. Just
> as you said in your note about Chicoreus ramosus. Can you explain how
> this happens...how it looks black? Instead of just a really intense red?
>
> Then I realized that Cypraea moneta, for instance, while it may become
> very rostrate in Prony Bay, never becomes melanistic. Instead it just
> becomes very deep yellow. "Melanism" fails to occur because it has
> neither of the pigments that can look black when in concentration. Only
> shells that have red or bvrown pigment become "melanistic."
>
> Also, what is brown pigment?
>
> For some examples, see George Sangiouglou's picture of C. arabica,
> clandestina, eglantina, erosa at
> http://members.xoom.com/sangioul/cypraea_gall.html
>
> There is also an old article on such abberations from HSN by Elmer
> Leehman on Bob Dayle's Captured Cowry:
> http://homepages.go.com/~makuabob/NSN276CY.HTM
>
> And if anyone wants to see a Napoleon's Hat, I can scan a photo and send
> it to you IF you request it privately.
>
> Lynn Scheu
> Louisville, KY
>
> [log in to unmask] wrote:
> ...Of course, "black", as it pertains to melanistic shells,
> > it not technically accurate. Molluscs do not produce true black shell
> > pigment. When they look black, it is due to extremely heavy
concentrations
> > or brown, or even red pigments.
>
> > Paul M.
>
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