To Bill Frank (and Harry Lee):

Have been busy struggling with the snow we are having here in Delaware so
have been slow to respond. All my shells are stored in cabinets in a
special section of our garage that is not accessible right now due to the
piles of snow in front of the garage door.  So am trying to ID these
specimens just from the pictures you Emailed, and have not been too
successful.

Would like to start out with a suggestion.  It would be very helpful to
have the dimensions of the shells, both length and width.

Regarding the largest shell in the middle, it is Cymatium (Ranularia) pyrum
(Linné, 1758).  My only concern is that the siphonal canal is not quite as
long as it usually is, but probably not beyond an acceptable
variation.  Everything else matches very well.  It is not a Cymatium
(Lotoria) lotorium or grandimaculata as was suggested.

Unfortunately I do not have a definite answer for the other two
specimens.  Juveniles can be very confusing, the one on the right being
very immature.  I have been using Alan Beu's new book and found one
newly-described species that I thought might be a possibility, only problem
is that its locality is Oman - a long way from the Philippines.  So I am
going to leave them for someone better at this than I am.   How about you
two, I consider you both ranellid experts.  What do you think they are?

Betty Jean, The Tall One

At 09:05 AM 1/25/00 -0500, you wrote:
>Pete Stimpson (Loudon, TN) has submitted images of three Ranellidae and
>one Cypraea species for review by members of Conch-L, in the hope that
>identifications will be forthcoming.  The images can be found at:
>
>  http://home.mindspring.com/~strombus/pete.htm
>
>Bill Frank
>1865 Debutante Dr.
>Jacksonville, Florida 32246
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