Hi All,

Thanks for the info, Andrew R.  During the summer I spent
a couple of hours digging out fossils in Leon County, Texas,
particularly looking for cones and cowries.  I found one of each.
Various people suggested that the fossils there were likely
Upper Cretaceous, but the cone shell appears to be Conus
sauridens Conrad, (?), supposedly from the Eocene.  Shells
from nearby deposits are certainly Eocene, but I'm not sure
if the layers overlap.  Many of the species I found are very
similar to present-day shells from the western Pacific, and
the cowry is no exception.  It looks almost like Cypraea
globulus, but has more distinct "flanges" at the ends, making
it appear less rostrate.  The aperture is slightly wider than
C. globulus at the anterior end, and slightly depressed, with
strong teeth that extend about a third of the way from the
aperture to the margins.  The margins of the shell do not
look like they belong to Pustularia, though.  They look like
figure 4b, page 467 of the L&H ...Cowries book.  The shell
is about 11mm long.  The more curved shape, different
aperture, and different teeth make me believe it is almost
certainly not Pustularia caribaea Schilder, 1939, figured on
page 474 of the same book.  Any ideas?

I contacted one of the local LARGE universities and asked
about references/papers that might have been done on
Paleocene or Eocene fossils from that part of Texas, but
didn't succeed in getting much information.  (They suggest-
ed that since I live in Pago Pago, I could collect non-fossil
cowries, and that they would be easier to identify...: )  I
doubt that the American Samoa Community College is
going to be much help in tracking down references, either.

Thanks as always,



Don

----------
> From: Andrew K. Rindsberg <[log in to unmask]>
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: info on cowrie fossil
> Date: Monday, November 08, 1999 10:42 AM
>
> The best way to identify fossils is to consult a publication on the local
> fossils. Yes, one's first idea is always to head for the biggest book on
> fossils, like the Treatise on Invertebrate Paleontology, but it's more
> efficient to study a book or article on the local fauna. Of course, it
> takes more work to find the article on local fauna, since it may be buried
> deep in the bowels of some long-forgotten journal. Ah, but that is what
> interlibrary loans are for.
>
> How do you find the references to begin with? I use GeoRef, an electronic
> database to which the Survey library subscribes. Most universities that
> offer geology courses subscribe to GeoRef. Ask the reference librarian how
> to use it, and you may be amazed at how easy it is. Of course, some
> libraries charge per citation and others don't, so it's wise to ask first.
>
> For instance, if I want to know how to identify a fossil cowry from the
> Pliocene of Florida, I might search for "Pliocene and Florida and Mollusca"
> for general articles on Pliocene paleontology, or "Pliocene and Cypraeidae"
> for monographs on fossil cowries.
>
> Or you can ask Conch-L, and often get a swift answer, as happened this
> time!
>
> Andrew K. Rindsberg
> Geological Survey of Alabama