Hi Bob,
How can you be sure it is a hoax? What happened to the shell? Is it in someone's collection so it could be verified?
Roland
 
Roland C. Anderson, Puget Sound Biologist
The Seattle Aquarium
1483 Alaskan Way
Seattle WA 98101 USA
phone: 206-386-4359
See our website: www.seattleaquarium.org
 
>>> makuabob <[log in to unmask]> 02/20 7:32 AM >>>
To other cowry enthusiasts on the CONCH-L server,
 
I knew that I would reach this issue of the HAWAIIAN SHELL NEWS
eventually. The Dec. 1990 issue has an item under RECENT FINDS
with a photo of a person holding an object purported to be a
Cypraea tigris of 8-1/4 inches in length.
 
It doesn't take much to realize that, with an established world record
of barely over six inches out of millions of collected tiger cowries,
this was a hoax. Imagine, those of you with an understanding of
Gaussian distributions, where this "specimen" would fall on such
curve.
 
It is being included only as a matter of completeness in the
cowry-related items... and as a warning to others, again, that
things too-good-to-be-true usually aren't true.
 
 
Aloha,
 
makuabob (a.k.a. Bob Dayle)