The thin, flexible walls flare to form an upright cylindrical crown and
having a wavy (plicated) basal margin; these are characteristic of the Shark
Eye moonsnail, Neverita duplicata (Say, 1822).

Egg collars are unique to the family Naticidae and no other prosobranch. A
very useful feature of differentiating species is the uniqueness of
moonsnail egg cases, sand-encrusted gelatinous ribbons (Giglioli, 1955) and
their resulting larval forms- planktonic/ crawl away (Bouchet and Waren
1993).

Giglioli (1955) developed a scheme of classification for naticid egg
collars. The egg collars of Atlantic intertidal species, Polinices heros, P.
duplicata, and P. triserata, were described by Gigliola 1952 and 1955 and
others.


Rick Harbo
Nanaimo,B.C. Canada


----- Original Message -----
From: "mike gray" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Monday, January 05, 2004 4:42 PM
Subject: Re: Florida sand egg collar


> Avril Bourquin wrote:
> > Happy New Year everyone!
> >
> > I have a gentleman from Florida wondering about sand collars.  I have
set up
> > a page for him at:
> >
http://www.manandmollusc.net/Mystery_shell_pages/mystery_shell_steve.html
> >
> > I told him that they were molluscan egg sand collars; however, I am not
> > totally familiar with Florida species so I would appreciate some help.
> >
> > Steve can be reached at:  [log in to unmask]
> > Or if you answer the list, I will forward on all responses to him.
>
> These are very common in southeast Florida, in the sand inside the third
> reef at 65 fsw. I always assumed they were Sharkeye (Polinices
> duplicatus) eggs, but I have never seen one being made.
>
> "Collectible Florida Shells" by R. Tucker Abbott also ascribes them to
> P. duplicatus.
>
> If someone wants to analyze one, I'll be happy to collect it, but I have
> never seen one that has obvious eggs.
>