For the cowry watchers among us,

Through the summer, I will be reviewing available information
on the Cypraea teres 'complex' as it occurs in Hawaii and,
to the degree limited data available on the web allows,
other Pacific, as well as Indian, Ocean areas.

To start with, I had to visually 'map' my own specimens, and
I thought that others with interests in cowries would like to
browse the nearly 900 specimens that I hold personally. The
main 'map' is an image of nearly a quarter-megabyte and can
be found at http://www.cowrys.org/research/gifs/allteres.jpg

The shells are in order of their aribtrarily assigned number
in my database. The top row is almost entirely composed of
'rashleighana' and 'burgessi' types of specimens. (When the
database was initially set up, these were the first groups to
be studied thus they were first to be assigned numbers.) Also,
with only one exception (I think), all "mated pairs" have their
anterior tips pointed toward one another; note that at #725,
four shells are in one group--one large and three smaller.
The numbers are not always contiguous, so mind the numerical
'signposts' as you go along.

Hopefully, this will be an informative addition to the on-line
community.

Aloha,

makuabob (a.k.a. Bob Dayle)

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