a couple of days ago Eddie Grella told me he had found live Haminoea
solitaria in the New London/Mystic CT area, a pretty interesting find
considering that we normally see them in New York only in late august- if
we even see them at all.

today i went with ed tory and carl slotnick to dig for false and fallen
angel wings (Petricola pholadiformis and Barnea truncata) in the peat banks
on the bay side of jones beach state park. the first thing we noticed on
our arrival were very large quantities of very fresh Haminoea solitaria all
over the beach and in the drift. Several still appeared to have the animal
and/or still be alive.

in the peat banks we indeed found the expected live Petricola and Barnea,
we had some fresh dead Barnea with the valves still together in the mud and
one large dead one, the biggest were about 45-50mm. But the real shocker
was the THIRD paired angel wing- Cyrtopleura costata!! the "true" angel
wing. This was a small specimen on the mud near the peat banks, in rough
shape to be sure, and very fragile- probably a subfossil. The valves
appeared to have been held together by some seaweed that apparently grew
while the dead valves were still in the mud, essentially holding or binding
them together. This is the first paired specimen of any vintage i am aware
of some 40 years collecting in new york. Single valves are common as
subfossils on our ocean beaches, and in the right bay habitat such as Jones
Beach, where again, i suspect they are subfossils, as other shells are
found there in subfossil condition.

some years ago Peter Msrtin, of the American Littoral Society, described to
me some shells he found in Dam Pond near Orient Point on the northeast end
of long island that he called angel wings and that he indicated were the
real angel wing and not the false angel wing, based on the appearance and
how he found them in the substrate, but without any actual specimens taken
I could not be sure. We snorkeled there once but failed to see anything
that resembled an angel wing or angel wing hole, but Peter- a much better
snorkeler and diver- said he found them by going much later in the fall
when the water had started to cool down and was much clearer.

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