>Hello all,
>Does anyone know of a website that covers the landsnail genus Cerion?
>I'm interested in the little bee-hive shaped guys, but have no data
>or ID photos of them.
>Thanks,
>Peter Egerton, Vancouver, Canada
>
>(ps. Is my signature file working?...just trying it out...have no idea
>how they work.)
>Peter Egerton, Vancouver, Canada
>Collector of worldwide Mollusca
 
Peter,
 
Your signiature file is working if what is above is what it is supposed to
look like.
 
I don't know of a website, but Tucker Abbott's Compendium of Landshells
illustrates about 3 dozen "species" of Cerionidae.  He says over 600
species have been described, "but all but about a dozen are merely local
subspecies or colonial distincts."
 
He also mentions that several Bahama forms were introduced to the Florida
Keys but that they must have hybridized with the native C. incanum.
Shelling in the Keys in the late 1960's I found one of these hybrids. I
didn't know what I had, of course, being brand new to shell collecting, (we
were actually on our honeymoon at the time) but years later Walter Sage,
former collections manager at the AMNH, told me what it was and that it was
Dr. Paul Bartch (USNM)  who tried settling the various Bahamian forms on
the Keys. He was a bit indignant over Bartsch's experiment and felt it was
ecologically unsound. Does anyone know more about this?
 
Lynn Scheu
[log in to unmask]
Louisville, KY