Thanks Harry,

I'm still curious whether anyone knows how they end up on the parietal side
of gastropod apertures (at least, that's where I found all of them in my 3
days in Hikkaduwa, Sri Lanka). If they migrate there from other locations
on the shell, I could see why they might locate based on olfactory (odor)
sense perhaps. But why not on the outer lip as well. (Maybe they do but I
didn't encounter them that way).

David

>Dear David,
>
>Probably Sabia conica (Schumacher, 1817).  Splitters place the taxon in
>Hipponix, but to the extent that Sabia exists as a generic unit, so does
>this binomen; it is the type of Sabia J. E. Gray, 1839.  Gray proposed
>Sabia to replace Amalthea Schumacher, 1817, a junior homonym of Amalthea
>from the pen of our old friend, Constantine Samuel Rafinesque (1815), who,
>three years later, brought us the infamous trivalve discussed on this
>list-serve by Andy R. a few months back.
>
>One irksome feature of the behavior of S. c. is its tendency to etch the
>surface of the (seashell) substrate as a recess into which the limpet-like
>shell of this snail fits snugly.  Such scarring was prominent on Strombus
>oldi Emerson, 1965 shells I collected from Somalia, and it seems to be so
>frequent a stigma on the shells of Harpa goodwini Rehder, 1993 that dealers
>tend not to remove the little commensal pests for fear of revealing this
>unsightly excavation.
>
>Harry
>
>
>At 12:04 PM 1/17/00 -0500, you wrote:
>>Folks,
>>Does anyone know the name of the ubiquitous cap-shell (Hipponix? or
>>whatever the newer name is) that invariably attaches singly or in pairs to
>>the parietal area of shallow water gastropods in Sri Lanka?
>>
>>And how does it "know" how to find the parietal area?
>>
>>It's about 5mm in diameter, white, with radiating ribs. Apex is elevated
>>and pointed to one side.
>>
>>David Kirsh
>>Durham, NC
>Harry G. Lee
>Suite 500
>1801 Barrs St.
>Jacksonville, FL 32204
>USA   904-384-6419
><[log in to unmask]>
>Visit the Jacksonville Shell Club Home Page at:
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>
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