~-_....,... ...... AlUJ ~1r]R{AJLII~ N~lf~JL IHIII~'Jr(Q)JRilf VOL. 16 NC? 1 MARCH, 1968 3 0 c PUBLISHED BY THE AUSTRALIAN IEGISTIEIIEO AT THIE GIENEIAL POST OHICI. SYDNEY, fOI TIANSMISSION IY POST AS A NIIOOICAL AUSTRALIAN NATURAL HISTORY Published Quarterly by the Australian Museum, College Street, Sydney Editor: F . H . TALBOT, Ph.D .. F .L.S. Annua l Subscription. $1.40 posted VOL. 16, NO. l MAR CH, 1968 CONTENTS PAGE T HE T URRI D SHELLFISH OF AUSTRALIAN SEAS- A. W. B. Poll·e/1 .. H EAD-HUNTERS I N THE WESTER D ISTR ICT, PAPUA- Roy D. Mackay 7 ARGE T l 1E A NTS- G. Pasjie/d 12 Y E OMOUS R I GED OCTOPUS 16 MANGROVES AND THEI.R FA UNA - Wi/liam M cNay . 17 THE M u D-LOBSTER- /sobe/ Benneff 22 B ooK R EVI EW .. 25 V ENOMOUS STARFISH I N SYDNEY H ARBOUR- £/izabel/i Pope 26 EXPERIME TS ON THE EFFECTS OF R ADIATION 0 A NTS- S. H . Skai(e 27 THE R oss AND OTHER A TARCTIC SEALS- Judirh £. King 29 e F RONT COVER: Part of a ceremonial shield from the village of Am bot, on the Keram ){iver, a tributary of tbe lower Sepik River, New Guinea. The pig face is moulded over a human skull, which is set in the centre of the shield. T he shield is composed of a rattan fra mework, plastered with clay, in which cowrie shells a nd pig bones are set. Tt was proba bly made fo r a ceremony to commemora te a well-known ancestor, and would have been used to decorate the interior of the village men's house. (Photo: C. V. T urner.) BACK COVER : The Brittle Star Ophiocoma insularia variety rariegata. of Australia coral reefs. T his starfish has attractive blendings of greys, brown and olive. Its disc reaches a width of 1 inch. (Photo: Howard Hughes.) THE TURRID SHELLFISH OF AUSTRALIAN SEAS By A. W. H. POWE LL Assistant Director, Auckland Museum, New Zeabnd HAT are turrids? One may well ask, W for, although they constitute one of the largest of shellfish fam ilies. not many of the species occur abunda ntly in the inter­ tidal zone. T he family is of world-wide occurrence; they range to the great depths, are well represented even in Arctic and Antarctic seas, and some thousands of fossil species are known. extend ing back m time to at least the upper C retaceous. In o ther words, the known a ncestry of turrids goes back at least JOO million years. Even so, the earliest kn own species, fro m Bald H ills, Cali fornia, U.S.A., does no t d iffer markedly fro m the turrids of today, and one is therefore induced to consider a n even earlier o rigin fo r the family. Turrids in general do not q uite ma ke the glamo ur class among the fa milies of shells favoured by the amateur collecto r- the cowries, cones, a nd volutes. Nevertheless, o ne of i ts m embers, Thatcheria mirabi/is, fro m deep water off Ja pan, is undo ubtedly the most exquisite a rt form of a ll m o llusca n shell s. A turrid is a difficult thing to define in general terms, owing to the diversity o f shapes encountered in the famil y; some look li ke cones. others superficia lly resemble tere brid s, fasciolarids, and even buccinids. T he Japanese deep-water Thcucheria mirabilis H owever, the one feature that is diagnostic Angas. the most beautiful of all the turrids. T here is an unconfirmed report of the presence of a turrid shell is a nwre or less well of this species in north Queensland waters. developed labial sinus, a sipho nal sli t or indentation, sometimes quite slig ht, in the upper part of the outer lip. The form a nd apparatus. Most gastropod mo lluscs have position of this sinus, coupled with the style a di tinctive feeding mechanism, known of p rotoconch, the p resence o r a bsence of as the radula, which lies back down the an operculum. and a special ized type of th roat of the a nimal and consists of numero us dentition, are the features upon which the rows of sharp teeth attached to a fl exible family is d ivided into nine subfamily groups. chiti nous ri bbon. In most gastropods food is masticated by T he t urrid dentitjon being forced d own the throat over the Undoubtedly there is close affinity between radular teeth, an actio n that has been likened the tu rrids a nd cones. which is revealed by not to ha rrowing a field but to fo rcing the a n anatomical feature common to both, the fi eld over the ha rrow. In ma ny turrids a nd toxoglossate (poison tongue) style of dental in a ll cones a very specialized state has March, 1968 Page 1 developed in wh ich the teeth can be loo e and in the form of slender barbed a rrows. Associated with this style of radula a re a poison gland and duct whereby the a nimal can actually shoot "poisoned a rrows" into its prey. However, not all turrids have the fully develo ped toxoglossate dentition, a nd in these, wh ich are considered the more primitive, there is a prototypic style of radula, consisting of a central tooth, comb­ like latera l teeth a nd slender po inted margina l teeth as well. Even in this prototypic radula, which has the teeth fixed to the lingual ribbon, there is a n associated poison gland. lt is assumed that. in this form of ~adul a, the pair of marginal teeth, which are the longest, administer the poison, and the central a nd laterals perform the mo re no rmal functi o n o f mastication. Jn the case of certain large tropical cones, even human fatalities have resulted fro m punctures received while handling the livi ng shellfish. However, there are no cases on record of toxic bites from turrids, although it is known that they attack and na rcotize other shellfish. and even small fi shes, in which proces they are aided by a long proboscis. Some pointers regarding classification To the uninitiated. turrid identificatio n is not easy, which is understa ndable, for the experts are frequently similarly puzzled. The vast number of turrids that have been described-almost I 0,000 of them, recent and fossil- fo rces one to apply a system of Top: Turrictda ne/line granobalteus H cd ley. from Broome. Western Australia. Left: family subdivisio ns. if for no other reason Leucosyrinx, a new species from deep water ofr than to reduce the spec.ies to manageable Caloundra, Queensland. Right: Bemho(ascis groups. biconica ( Hedley), from the same locality. is not proposed to go too deeply into Bottom: Comitas nulrraH•o/ga (Garrard ). off lt New South Wales, 75 fathom<;. ( Benrhofascis the boring subject of classification, but the belongs tO the Conorhiinae. the others to the foll owing pointers sho uld help the collector T urriculinae). to arrange specimens into subfamily groups and thus narrow down the search for the relevant genus and species. Fo r the remamtng seven here are some Nine subfam ilies have been adopted, and indicators: their names a re : Turriculinae, Turrinae, If the pro toconch is sculptured with Clavatulinae. Borsonii nae, Clavinae, Conor­ diagonally cancellated threads, and the binae, Mangeliinae, Daphnellinae, and labial si nus is sutural a nd of reversed L­ T hatcherinae. Of these we can el iminate shape, then the specimen is daphnellid. If two, the Clavatulinae and the Thatcherinae, the sinus is on or adjacent to the peripheral since they do not occur in Australian waters. carina, V-shaped, or a deep sl it, then the There is, however, an unconfirmed report of Turrinae is indica ted, except that similar the latter from north Queensland waters. shells. but with the addition of pillar-plaits, Page 2 Australian Natural History Well-known Lndo-Pacific members of the subfamily T urrinae known to occur in Australian waters. From left : two specimens of Tun·is crispa ( Lamarck), Cairns, Queensland ; Turris spectabilis (R eeve), Capricorn Group, Queensland ; Turris undosa ( Larnarck )~ Tin Can Bay, Queensland; Tun·is annulata ( Reeve), North Queensland ; Gemmula hawleyt (Iredale), Port Jackson, New South Wales; Gemmula kieneri ( Doumet). north Q ueensland. belong to the Bo rsoniinae, A large sub­ The Australian living turrids family, the Turriculinae, have a sinuous sinus, There are over 400 livin g species of its apex upon the shoulder slope. Bo th the Australian turrids, and a very considerable Turrinae and Turriculinae mostly have a number of fossil species have been described tall spire and a long anterior canal. Mem­ fro m the T ertiary beds of Tasmania. V ictoria, bers of the Clavinae have tall spires, but and South Australia. usually the anterior canal is short. The The southern species are now fa irly well sinus is upon the shoulder slope and is known, but new additions are constantly often constricted to subtubular by ao coming to light in northern waters as the apertural tubercle. The Mangeliinae are result of more intensive commercial fi shing. by far the most prolific modern group. Many of these new additions are well-known They a re mostly of small size and variable species from southeast A sia a nd Japan. in form. Most are fusiform, i.e., spindle­ Mr Charles Hedley, formerly conchologist shaped, with a relatively weak sinus upon at the Australian Museum, published in the shoulder slope.