Paul, Did anyone explain where all the Cypraea fultoni were found? Don Lycette > -----Original Message----- > From: [log in to unmask] [SMTP:[log in to unmask]] > Sent: Tuesday, August 24, 1999 5:21 AM > To: [log in to unmask] > Subject: Re: Extinction Broadcast > > Art, > I think that question may be impossible to answer, because it is very > difficult, if not impossible, to tell if a marine species IS extinct. > What > criterion could be used? No specimens collected in the past 50 years? > What > would that prove, considering that less than 1% of the ocean floor has > been > explored in the past 50 years? Slit shells were "known" for many > years to be > extinct as a family, until a live one was brought up in a net. Not to > mention the coelacanth! Actually, it is impossible even to know with > certainty whether a marine species is truly "rare", because we have > explored > so little of the ocean floor - as shown by the recent glut of Cypraea > fultoni > on the market - a species that was "extremely rare" just last year! > At the > recent COA convention, they were all over the place! It is much > easier to > determine if a land snail has been exterminated from the one island it > occupied, or a fresh water mussel from the one river it lived in, than > to > know if a species has been exterminated from the ocean! Also, it is > far less > likely to happen in the ocean. > Paul M.