Siargao Island Shell Netting - Update Well, this is sort of an end of term report, because the Amihan (North East Monsoon) winds are coming on, and winter cometh. It doth cometh too; quite cold - almost down to a frigid 70°F. I've spent the last week classifying what we found over the summer (or rather the Spring and Autumn, with a big break for Alimang's seaweed growing from July to September and my trying to run a restaurant/bar)and was pleasantly surprised. We've picked up somewhat over 160 species. When you count in that more than 50 of those species were semi-micro (less than an inch long, and many of them very boring indeed) then it doesn't sound very much. But even the very boring ones have not been totally without anything to recommend them at all. Take Chama whateveritis ??? - This jewel box (so-called), is, as a collector's shell, about as boring as a petrified cabbage sprout. It's dull, brown, and has all the charisma of George Bush, but (really, read on) may be a little more fascinating. It must be one of the very few animals (or plants) on the whole planet which doesn't know which way is UP. That's quite exclusive. I spent a whole afternoon looking at the hinges (umbones. teeth, and all the rest of it) of different species of Chama to find out whether the tooth or the groove was normally on top, only to find that this particular animal doesn't even care. It goes both ways. Sometimes it's up, sometimes it's down. I challenge you to find another animal anywhere (sloths excepted) which lives like this. How has this creature (which has a small brain, if any at all) hit on the idea that such a ponderous issue as gravity doesn't even matter? With such a simple agenda, do you think it could win the next Presidential election ? So far as the netting is going, we seem to have hit the G-spot now - better things are coming up than ever before (We've found Dinakpan, an armophous bit of ocean out there beyond the reef, which is a local fishing ground at certain seasons - it's definitely it). At a depth of 100m or so, and beyond any shore-based references, even Alimang, who could find a drowned needle in a flooded haystack, can't hit the exact spot every time, so every netting is a bit of a chancer. I'm just resting, and letting him do all the work. Many days, he finds nothing at all, but a lot of rocks, coralline weed and junk. We get a lot of Angaria, and a lot of Xenophora (carrier shells) just because they're spiky. He brings the boat on shore every other morning or so, just opposite the school grounds, a bit down the road. Anything that rolls out of the net easily, like cones or cowries, he keeps in half a plastic Caltex oil bottle. (The cut-off bottle is an accepted local measure - you buy shelled 'ganga' - Lambis lambis, to eat a la ceviche - raw - by the Caltex). Then we sit on the grass and shake out the net, and the school kids crowd around and pick out the small stuff which I would never see. Which is why more than 50 of our species are about a half-inch long, or even less. This week he came up with a Conus voluminalis (but not quite - something different) and another of the strange cones which looks like Conus moluccensis/proximus, but isn't - both alive and kicking. plus another small cone, only an inch long, quite unidentifiable, with a concave spire, wider in the body than the shouldres, very delicate, pink coloured, possibly a juvenile of something, but what ? (We don't get a lot of cones - they're not stupid enough to wander into a net. Nor are cowries, but we got a little Cypraea beckii just yesterday). We get a lot of cone fragments, which are intriguing - which cone has a pink base, brown flammules, and a round shoulder ? He also got our first live Spondylus imbutus, a beautiful little red thing, with very delicate fronds. Last week he got the most beautiful Harpa harpa I've ever seen (red, with blood-red lines, and belly markings which might make a certain Mr Kajiyama commit harikiri) - it's certainly on the gradient between Harpa harpa and Harpa kajiyamai, with the sculpture of one - flat, swept-back ribs, serrations on the lip - and the markings of the other. We're not having much luck with finding ordinary, common or garden Harpa major to compare with the strange one we caught earlier this year. We only get very dead beaten-up ones or fragments - but all are very different to that strange one. Now,I think it's time we started dredging - if Hugh Cuming found it useful 150 years ago then it might work now - the local technology hasn't changed very much, except we now have boat engines to pull the damned things along. Netting is very hapahazard, so we might as well try a bit of a more pro-active method. Two big questions: 1) How do we design a dredge which can be put down 100 metres, by hand, behind only a 14HP motor, and how do we get it up again ? 2) Where, exactly, is the radula on a Conus ? Could I examine them with a magnifying glass ? (A kayabang (small coconut crab) has just wandered in across my living-room floor, so it must be coming up to full moon - we'll have to organise a night dive off Pansukian (Naked Island) reef and find some of the shells that only come out at night). Best regards Richard Parker Please reply to [log in to unmask] with copy to Conch-L (I can only get to the Internet Cafe every 3 weeks or so, and trawling through 750 or more letters for replies is quite a chore) ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com