It isn't a shell dealer's plot. Shell dealers, by and large, don't assign taxonomic names. They just use the names that taxonomists have applied. This tendency reached its peak some thirty years ago, and nowhere was it more pronounced than in the Cypraeidae, thanks largely to a famous husband and wife team of taxonomists and a few other notorious splitters of the day. Those who are old enough (oops, I mean mature enough) no doubt remember those long lists from Richard Kurz and other dealers, with 400 different taxa of Cypraeidae listed - including 15 to 20 forms/varieties/subspecies of Cypraea caurica, maybe 8 or 10 varieties of Cypraea gracilis, yes and even a half dozen subspecies of Cypraea moneta, Cypraea caputserpentis, and Cypraea lynx. The thing that always annoyed me was that if you ordered a dozen of the listed varieties of Cypraea caurica, at least six of them would look virtually identical. I don't consider myself a lumper - things with obvious differences should be split (remember when Cypraea diluculum was a subspecies of Cypraea ziczac?!!). But I am relieved that the splitting craze of the 50's and 60's has subsided somewhat, and we are in a period of relative balance! Paul M.