I don't have to use my imagination.  At Panama City, FL, there is a
place called Shell Island.  Two daily boat trips go there each day to
take tourists, leave them and pick them up later.  Since they always
dock at the same place, you can imagine any exisiting shells are shortly
picked clean.  I have been told that the island is "salted" nightly with
shells for the tourists, and anything might (and has) turn up.  They buy
them by the pound.
 
Sylvia in Alabama
 
Charles Sturm wrote:
>
> I would like to present two scenarios to the group and ask for your
> opinions as to what is going on.  I have some of my own thoughts but
> wanted to tap the collective experience of Conch-L members.
>
> The first scenario relates to a donation made to me about 5 years ago.
> The shells were collected dead on a beach near Naples, Florida.  The
> person who collected them did so for the purpose of making a lamp.  This
> was the only time that she had been to Florida, did not buy any shells,
> and was given none by anyone else.  The shells that she did not use for
> the lamp were put into a closet and forgotten for several years.  They
> were given to me by this persons daughter.  She asked her Mom for them
> when she heard that I was interested in shells.  All of the shells were
> Floridian except for two.  There was one Stombus luhuanus (linne)
> [Strombidae], one Planaxis sulcatus (Born) [Planaxidae], both Indo-Pacific
> shells.  I had my friend grill her Mother as to any possible way that
> these may have contaminated the collection; been added later, bought,
> given to her by someone else while in Florida, etc, but she stated "the
> only place they could have come from was the beach."
>
> The second scenario deals with a donation made to the Carnegie last year.
> A gentleman dropped off a collection of shells from Florida that were
> unidentified.  The collection was supposedly Floridian shells that were
> dredged.  I identified the material and there were 4 taxa that caused me
> concerns.  The first was a lot of Liguus.  When I wrote to the donor, he
> did confirm that these were given to him by someone and were not from the
> dredged material.  The other three shells were Monodonta labio (linne)
> [Trochidae], Strombus luhuanus (Linne) [Strombidae] and Turbo porphyrites
> (Martyn) [Trochidae].  There was one of each of these shells.  The donor
> stated that these had to come from the dredged material.  The material
> came from several kilometers offshore and was collected from a scallop
> dump.  He denied receiving any shells from others or purchasing any
> shells.  These later three shells are Indo-Pacific.
>
> I can find no reference to any of the Indo-Pacific taxa having established
> populations in Florida or the Caribbean region, whether in printed
> resources or on-line (for example Rosenberg's Malacolog 2.0).
>
> THE QUESTION:  Where did these specimens come from?  How did they get into
> these collections?
>
> THE CHARGE TO CONCH-L:  Let your imaginations run wide.  We are good at
> that! ;-)  Speculate as to what is going on.  Reflections as to the worth
> of these two collections?  Anyone else have similar situations happen to
> them?
>
> I will thank you for your input in advance.  Let the fun begin!
>
> Charlie
> ******************************************************************************
> Charlie Sturm, Jr
> Research Associate - Section of Invertebrate Zoology
>                      Carnegie Museum of Natural History
> Assistant Professor - Family Medicine
>
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