Thank you very much Mr. Thomas,

Thank you for teach me much information on "subfossil cowrie".
I have bought two "subfossil erosa" from Don Pisor when I visited to San
Diego. They are light-bright yellow and feel very very fresh. The shells
have some features of see-through texure. It is hard believe that they are
in dead state. I have many dead cowries such as kuroharaii, langfordi from
Japan. They are all fade color and drilled by worms, of course without any
glossy surface.

I think when a cowrie becames a subfossil one, it will take long time in the
bottom of the sea. But I wonder why these "subfossil cowries" have excellent
glossy surface and without any worm holes. Most of they have beautiful
colorations.

Can you tell me why? I am very interested in the processes of a living
cowrie becomes a "subfossil cowrie".

Thank you very much in advanced.


-
Jiongtao
http://www.soft.ics.keio.ac.jp/~huang/cgi-bin/seashells.cgi

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