Some success at last. The weather is glorious, the seas calm. We're just
beginning to find the right spots, and some interesting shells, amongst them
our first cones, a strange Harpa, and a strange latiaxis. There are five
shells I can't identify at all. Help! Please.

Ali Mang won't dare put the nets down for longer than overnight in case
they're stolen. We've moved to an area passed only by locals on their way to
the fishing grounds (at this season, about ten miles out, for 'bolis' small
skipjack tuna). I've also enlisted the help of the Mayor. He's a big man,
and has a fearsome reputation. He stopped local dynamite fishing by sheer
physical intimidation. He'll be a good man to have on our side. I want to be
able to put down the nets for two or three days, and give the slower snails
a chance to get trapped

The continental shelf here extends for only about a half mile offshore, then
it drops rapidly from about 70 metres depth to 500, within a half mile.
About two miles offshore, it's down to more than 1000 metres, and about
thirty miles out, in the Mindanao Trench, it's 10,000 metres deep. If you
dumped Mt Everest in there, you'd still have to dive down 3000 feet to put
your flag on the summit. It'll be quite some time before we start netting
down there.

There aren't many places in the world where it goes from sea level to 10,000
metres in just a few miles, up or down. The Conch-L correspondent who asked
which mountain I'm living on just got it upside down

We've mostly been netting Site 1, a sort of deep sea 'inlet' with very steep
sides. Below 100 metres, we've found virtually nothing at all, except rocks
and shelly rubble, and a sort of 'mountain scree' of rocky concreted lumps.
There is a very strong current, even at depths of 100-150 metres. Many of
the shells show breaks, even at these depths, which can't be from wave
action. We can't really say we're deep sea netting, at only 100-120 metres,
but while we're finding good things we'll wait a bit to go deeper.

Site 2 is on a gentler slope, from the plateau level of about 40-60 metres
down to 350 over about a mile. It's sandy on top, and the chart shows sand
at 350 metres at the bottom, so hopefully, there will be a sandy slope in
between. It is on the sailfish migration route, along the shelf, but the
sailfish and marlin season is just over, so there shouldn't be any
light-fingered non-locals trolling by who might steal the nets

We also took a trip about 20 miles to the north, Site 3, where the shelf
goes off only about half a mile from shore. Setting the nets was very
difficult on a very steep rocky slope (about 600, from 70-200 metres) and
they got very torn about. But we got a nice little Conus dusaveli and a
Strombus pipus, amongst others, which was a nice reward. I have left a shell
net with a local lobster fisher, and I hope we will see more from there.

If you ever want to try it, here's what we do:
- The net is nylon twine, with a 4 x 8 x 50 mesh (about 3/4 inch wide). For
each net, we use 100 metres mesh, for an effective final net length of about
60 metres. The net has strong nylon monofilament #8 line to reinforce the
top and bottom lengths, with lead weights on the bottom and small slipper
floats on the top. At each end, tie a 2 or 3 kg rock, and a #12 rope, about
200 metres long.

- To set the net, go out at dusk, dump one rock, full length of rope, and a
buoy over the side, and let it drift away slowly. Then manoeuvre the boat
away a bit, and slowly let the other rope down, feeling for the bottom. Give
it a few more metres of rope for drift, tie the excess rope under another
buoy (actually an empty Chlorox bottle), and head off home for supper, after
making sure there's no-one around to steal the net.

- Get up before first light, and go out to pull it up. That's a job best
left to the professionals, like Ali Mang and his eleven year old son, Yoyoy,
who is a great deal tougher than I am.

- Count the shells caught, which are usually about enough to fill a teacup,
and resolve to try, try again. It's ludicrously haphazard, and I wonder we
ever catch anything.

In theory, the snails come bumbling along, looking for their daily meals,
climb up your net, and get stuck. In practice, the net drifts along the
bottom a bit, and gets tangled up with a few loose rocks. It snags them and
anything else which is spiny, long, thin, and may be alive, plus a few
hermit crabs in dead shells who come along to scavenge, and the odd fish and
crab.

Over the past three weeks, we found (from about 100-120 metres, mostly at
Site 1) -

- Our first worthwhile cones:
- Conus luteus, 27mm long, but crabbed and with a very chipped lip, bigger
than the Conus luteus I have from Bohol, which are from 16-22mm only. It has
a much stronger pattern, purple streaked with brown, almost like a
kinoshitae
- Conus pertusus, 17mm but nice colour - Site 2
- Conus voluminalis ? 37mm - pale yellow, like macarae, but more 'swollen' -
Site 2
- Conus dusaveli, only 51mm but old enough to vote - Site 3
These are the first of any of these species I have seen from here.

A gem of a Harpa, 60mm long, and very strange, most like a Harpa ventricosa,
(which is supposed to come from the other side of the Indian Ocean) but:
- only nine ribs on the last whorl, instead of 14-15
- only 3 ribs meet on the fasciolar cord, not 5 or 6
- earlier whorls have correspondingly fewer ribs, so it is not just an
aberrant juvenile and are cream, without any pattern, becoming yellow and
brown on the penultimate whorl
- mouth is not serrated like Harpa harpa
- colouring is in the usual Harpa pattern, but pale peach-gold, no pink or
grey, and with a deep yellow mouth
- 2 columellar blotches are deep brown, with a very definite yellow patch
separating them, like Abbott & Dance's Harpa ventricosa p211
- the ribs are rounded, not flattened
- body whorl is less swollen than Harpa major or ventricosa
- thick and robust
- I only have a very broken and worn local Harpa major to compare, but that
is bright pink, with more ribs. So is a Harpa major I have from Madagascar.

- Latiaxis sp 31mm, from Site 2, most like pagodus, but:
- it is pure white, and much larger than other pagodus I have from Cebu &
Bohol
- there are no pits below the spines
- instead of a second row of spines, there is a serrated keel, which is just
on the suture line of the earlier whorls
- the umbilicus is quite open, deep into the shell

- A couple of strange little murex -
- One 16mm long, white, with very swollen whorls, almost like a Haustellum,
but with no long 'tail'. Siphonal canal is not broken, but complete, open,
flaring, and recurved. Three strong varices per whorl Something like
Phyllocoma convoluta (Springsteen and Leobrera Plate 95, Abbott & Dance P149
) but much much shorter, and more compressed
- a small white one with pale yellow stripes, 24mm long, some kind of
Chicoreus, maybe venustulus (something like Abbott & Dance P133, but not
quite)
Neither is identifiable from my books (Abbott & Dance, Springsteen &
Leobrera, Eisenberg, Wye's Encyclopedia)

- A whole bunch of Murex nigrispinosus, from 20 to 95mm long (the net
catches ANYTHING long, thin and spiny)

- Murex dentifer, 85mm long, but very beaten-up and chipped on the varices,
and with a brand new 'tail'

- Three carrier shells,
- Xenophora corrugata, 25mm high x 30
- Xenophora corrugata 30 x 37mm - from Site 3 - very dark, almost black
- Xenophora cerea, only 8mm high x 15, darker than the first and flatter
(Springsteen & Leobrera suggest that corrugata is just a form of cerea)

- The usual Latirus, like paetelianus, and a strange one, 27mm long, with
strong axial ribs and spiral cords, colour yellow with a burnt orange
fasciole - not in any of my books.

- A few small Fusinus tuberculatus, and 1 small colus but quite normal,
unlike the Fusinus we caught in the first few weeks

- More Bufonaria nobilis
- Tutufa bufo - 70mm

- Angaria - with the first bright red Angaria sphaerula I have found here,
in the same net as three of the more usual type, which are greeny brown.

- Strombus pipus - 37mm only, but with an unusually tall spire

- Laevicardium biradiatum - a smooth cockle
- Ctenocardia victor - lots of single valves
- Malleus anatinus - hammer oyster - a whole damned colony
- Spondylus regius - 25mm, nice long spines
- Spondylus anacanthus - 40mm very nice, but the **** rock broke just across
the middle of the lower valve when I tried to trim it down
- Some tantalising fragments, like a very deep orange single valve of
Chlamys mirifica, half a larger Spondylus regius, and half a butleri - there
are some more interesting things down there, but difficult to catch.

I will be photographing the stranger shells (if I can fix my camera).

If anyone is interested in seeing the photos, and helping to identify the
shells, please E-mail [log in to unmask], and I will try and send
the pictures direct as attachments.

Richard Parker, Siargao, Philippines

Please reply to [log in to unmask] with copy to Conch-L

(I can only get to the Internet Cafe every 3 weeks or so, and trawling
through 750 or more letters on my Conch-L address, for replies is quite a
chore)


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