And more from the aquarium: Within a few minutes of extinguishing the main aquarium lights, once again signs of life began to appear. Most of the cowries, including Helmut Lynx, were distributed around the water line at the top of the tank, and all the cones except Mark Episcopatus were buried. Mark was still moving his siphon, but had moved little since he was harpooned by Art, the conus textile. Eduardo Magnificus was the first to move, bursting from the rubble at the bottom of the aquarium, and as might be expected, headed straight up the wall to the spot where Helmut was stationed. He climbed fairly quickly at first, but as he approached the cowry, he slowed until he was barely moving. I got my camera and waited to see what would happen. When Eduardo got within a few millimeters of Helmut, he stopped. He extended his siphon to with about a millimeter of Helmet, and just sat there. And sat. Eduardo would move his siphon to either side, back and forth, but never made any attempt to harpoon the lynx. For two hours I sat there, camera in hand, waiting for one of the snails to break the standoff. Neither one had budged, when along the water line came an unsuspecting cypraea caurica. As it became obvious that the caurica intended to crawl between Helmut and Eduardo, I thought, "OK, here's an easy meal for Eduardo!" As the caurica forced his way between these two, Eduardo never retracted his siphon. Instead, he simply "folded" it to one side, and allowed the caurica to pass unmolested. He never showed the slightest interest in the caurica, and as soon as he was out of the way, Eduardo resumed his stakeout on the cypraea lynx. For a total of three hours Eduardo kept his vigil, then finally turned around and headed back to the bottom of the tank. He buried himself without any further attempts at catching a meal, and I went to bed. The next day Mark had still not moved, and his siphon was no longer visible. The third day after being stung by Art I removed him from the tank, and sure enough, he was dead. It seemed amazing that he had survived for over two days after the encounter with the textile cone, only to eventually succumb to the toxin. His foot seemed to be paralyzed almost from the beginning, yet he had crawled several inches and partially buried himself just before he died. It made me wonder just how close he had come to surviving the encounter. That afternoon, a good friend and outstanding photographer asked if he could borrow Tom and Eduardo for a little photo session in the ocean. I said sure, so he took the two cones on a field trip to Faga'alu, on the west side of Pago Pago Harbor. He managed to get photos of both cones, as well as some other creatures that he had planned to photograph, but unfortunately lost track of Tom Episcopatus, and only came home with Eduardo. I was happy to have Eduardo back, but when I put him in the tank he immediately buried himself, and I didn't see him again for five days. Thus began a quiet period in the Cone War aquarium. For several days and nights there was little action, with all of the cones staying mostly buried, and the cowries touring the rocks and glass with no worries. I wondered if everyone had become accustomed to the aquarium, and had now entered a period of more typical activity since the novelty was gone. I decided to shake things up a bit, and after a few hours in the water, returned with three new residents for the tank. Meet Paul Textile, slightly smaller than Art, and the Omaria brothers, Andy and Gary. Each conus omaria had a scar on his dorsum, but I decided it would be easy enough to tell them apart, as one had a straight scar (Andy) and one had a curved scar (Gary). I put all three in the tank at the same time, turned out the light, and waited for the fireworks. It took about five minutes for the three cones to bury themselves, and none of them resur- faced for the rest of the evening! I guess the new surroundings might not have been responsible for all the previous week's activity after all. I thought it over carefully, and decided that all of the unsettled cowry activity might have been responsible for the cones' excitement, so I determined that I would collect a few more small cowries for the tank and see if anyone became more motivated. This time I went out and caught two cypraea isabellas and four erosas, and dropped them in the tank with the cones. I didn't notice much activity that evening, but in the morning there was one empty isabella shell and one empty erosa shell, so at least a couple of the cones had had dinner during the night. That evening I came in and extinguished the aquarium light, and waited to see if any of the cones would chase the remaining cowries. Most of the cowries were lined up near the water line at the top of the tank, though a few were on the rocks or sitting on the gravel. Helmut had taken up residence in the clump of branch coral, and had been there since the previous night. A couple of minutes after the light was turned off, Eduardo came bursting from the rubble, and made straight for Helmut's hideout. Helmut appeared to be in a fairly safe place in the coral, but this time he didn't wait until Eduardo was upon him before he started his escape maneuvers. When Eduardo was still several inches away, Helmut seemed to sense his coming, and left his hiding spot in the coral and began climbing for higher ground. He climbed to the highest point on the coral branch, actually out onto the very tip of one of the branches, and stopped there. Eduardo continued on to the place where Helmut had been, and then actually stretched upward toward Helmut's new perch, with his siphon pointed directly at him. Eduardo knew the lynx cowry was up there, but he couldn't seem to figure out how to get to him. He pirouetted (slowly) several times, keeping his siphon aimed directly at Helmut, but never made any attempt to climb onto the coral. He eventually gave up and crawled away, and Helmut remained perched on the tip of the coral branch for the rest of the evening. It turned out that this was the last time Eduardo showed any particular interest in Helmut, as he seemed to have decided that cypraea isabella and erosa were now more to his liking (or at least more suited to his hunting skills...). (to be continued) And the real cone wars begin soon... Cheers, Don