This certainly is not a common occurrence, but I have seen a couple of other cowries with glazed-over barnacles, as well as one with a glazed-over tubeworm. The question that intrigues me is why the cowrie waited until it's guest was a full-grown barnacle to glaze it over. Why didn't the cowrie glaze over the barnacle while it was still a near-microscopic, freshly attached spat? This is probably the reason why such encrustations are so uncommon on cowries. So why does an occasional larval encrusting organism manage to escape this fate and grow to maturity, and presumably get glazed over only after it dies? Paul M.