a couple of days ago Eddie Grella told me he had found live Haminoea solitaria in the New London/Mystic CT area, a pretty interesting find considering that we normally see them in New York only in late august- if we even see them at all. today i went with ed tory and carl slotnick to dig for false and fallen angel wings (Petricola pholadiformis and Barnea truncata) in the peat banks on the bay side of jones beach state park. the first thing we noticed on our arrival were very large quantities of very fresh Haminoea solitaria all over the beach and in the drift. Several still appeared to have the animal and/or still be alive. in the peat banks we indeed found the expected live Petricola and Barnea, we had some fresh dead Barnea with the valves still together in the mud and one large dead one, the biggest were about 45-50mm. But the real shocker was the THIRD paired angel wing- Cyrtopleura costata!! the "true" angel wing. This was a small specimen on the mud near the peat banks, in rough shape to be sure, and very fragile- probably a subfossil. The valves appeared to have been held together by some seaweed that apparently grew while the dead valves were still in the mud, essentially holding or binding them together. This is the first paired specimen of any vintage i am aware of some 40 years collecting in new york. Single valves are common as subfossils on our ocean beaches, and in the right bay habitat such as Jones Beach, where again, i suspect they are subfossils, as other shells are found there in subfossil condition. some years ago Peter Msrtin, of the American Littoral Society, described to me some shells he found in Dam Pond near Orient Point on the northeast end of long island that he called angel wings and that he indicated were the real angel wing and not the false angel wing, based on the appearance and how he found them in the substrate, but without any actual specimens taken I could not be sure. We snorkeled there once but failed to see anything that resembled an angel wing or angel wing hole, but Peter- a much better snorkeler and diver- said he found them by going much later in the fall when the water had started to cool down and was much clearer. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- [log in to unmask] - a forum for informal discussions on molluscs To leave this list, click on the following web link: http://listserv.uga.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=conch-l&A=1 Type your email address and name in the appropriate box and click leave the list. ----------------------------------------------------------------------