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.