CRITICAL REVIEW OF BIOLOGY AND CONTROL OF OYSTER DRILLS Urosalpinx and Eupleura MarineLIBRARYBiological Laboratory! JUN2 8 1S55 WOODS HOLE, MASS. SPECIAL SCIENTIFIC REPORT-FISHERIES No. 148 i UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR FISH AND WILDLIFE SERVICE EXPLANATORY NOTE The series embodies results of investigations, usually of restricted scope, intended to aid or direct management or utilization practices and as guides for administrative or legislative action, it is issued in limited quantities for official use of Federal, State or cooperating agencies and in processed form for economy and to avoid delay in publication United States Department of the Interior, Douglas McKay, Secretary Fish and Wildlife Service, John L, Farley, Director Critical Review of Biology and Control of Oyster Drills UROSALPINX and EUPLEURA By Melbourne Romaine Carriker The Department of Zoology The Umversity of North Carolina Chapel Hill, North Carolina Special Scientific Report: Fisheries No, 148 Washington, D. C. April, 1955 TABLE OF CONTENTS Page INTRODUCTION 1 TAXONOMY 2 DISTRIBUTION -2 Fossil Distribution 2 Recent Vertical Distribution 3 Recent Horizontal Distribution 3 General 3 Specific 4 Eastern Coast of North America 5 Eastern Canada 5 Maine 5 - Massachusetts 6 Rhode Island 7 " Connecticut 7 New York 7 New Jersey 8 Maryland 9 Virginia 9 Southern States 10 North Carolina '11 South Carolina ll Georgia 11 Florida 12 Northern coast of the Gulf of Mexico 12 Bermuda 12 Western Coast of North America 12 California 12 Oregon 14 Washington 14 Western Canada 14 Great Britain 14 Other Areas 16 Temporal Distribution 16 ABUNDANCE 17 FORM AND FUNCTION 17 General 17 Nervous System 20 Circulatory System 20 Locomotory System 21 Drilling and Feeding Organs 22 Excretory System 25 Reproductive System 26 Page Ova 29 Egg Capsule 30 ECOLOGICAL LIFE HISTORY 33 Duration and Intensity of Oviposition 33 Behavior of the Drill during Oviposition 35 Egg Case Stages 36 Incubation Period and Hatching Behavior 37 Growth 40 Growth rate, temperature, and latitude 44 Growth rate and quality of food 45 Sexual Maturity 47 Longevity and Mortality 47 - Food and Food Procurement 48 Food preferences 48 Drilling behavior 51 Feeding behavior 54 Effect of drilling on oysters 54 Rate of destruction of prey 54 RELATION TO ENVIRONMENTAL FACTORS 60 Substratum 60 Salinity 61 Minimum survival salinity 61 Movement 67 Drilling and feeding 68 Growth 68 Oviposition 69 Egg case stages 69 pH 70 Temperature 70 Movement and hibernation 70 Drilling and feeding 73 Oviposition 74 Tolerance to extremes of temperature 75 Water Currents 75 Gravity 76 Light 77 Ectocrines 77 Interrelations of Environmental Factors 81 Biological Races 81 RELATION TO OTHER ANIMALS , 88 • Cannibalism 88 Other Species of Drilling Gastropods 89 Sea Stars 89 Fish 90 Parasites 90 Page MIGRATION 90 Horizontal 90 Spawning Migration 98 "Sudden Appearance" of Drills on Oyster Grounds 99 EUPLEURA CAUDATA- 101 CONTROL 103 Introduction 103 Capture of Drills and Egg Cases 105 Hand picking 105 Forks , 106 Concrete pillars 106 Oyster dredges 106 Deck screens 107 Drill dredges 108 Drill box traps 109 Drill trapping 109 Hydraulic suction dredges 112 Fate of drills passing through suction dredges. 114 Destruction of Drills and Egg Cases 115 Desiccation 1 15 Heat 115 Hot water 115 Flame 116 Electricity 116 Ultrasonics 117 Fresh, brackish, and brine water . 117 Magnesium chloride 118 Copper sulfate 118 Mercuric chloride 119 Formalin 120 Rotenone and amox 120 Search for new compounds 120 Physical and chemical barriers 121 Biotic 123 Utilization of Local Conditions 124 Low Salinity 124 Mud and sand bottom devoid of hard objects 125 Temporary abandonment of bottom 125 Removal of bottom trash 126 Ratio of drills to prey 126 Sharply pointed objects 127 Exposure on intertidal bottom 127 BENEFICIAL ASPECTS OF THE DRILL 127 GENERAL DISCUSSION 127 SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS 129 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 132 LIST OF LITERATURE . 134 List of Tables: Urosalpinx cinerea Page Table 1 . Height and sex, relationship 27 Table 2 . Egg production 29 Table 3 . Egg case production 32 Table 4. Spawning period, duration of in different latitudes 34 Table 5 . Incubation period of egg case stages, duration of 38 Table 6 . Growth rate in English waters 42 Table 7 . Maximum height in different geographic regions 46 Table 8 . Rate of destruction of oysters, general 55 Table 9. Rate of destruction of oysters, related to water temperature and drill size 56 Table 10 . Survival in low salinities, effect of successively lower water temperatures 64 Table 11 . Death rates, effect of low and then high salinity at low temperatures 65 Table 12 . Death rates, effect of temperature and salinity 66 Table 13. Initiation and cessation of movement, feeding, and oviposition, relation to water temperature in different geographic regions 82 Table 14. Initiation of turning over, feeding, and oviposition, relation to water temperature in the laboratory 83 Table 15 . Migration rates in the field 96 . CRITICAL REVIEW OF BIOLOGY AND CONTROL OF OYSTER DRILLS UROSALPINX AND EUPLEURA INTRODUCTION The oyster drill Urosalpimx cinerea (Say) is a small, slow-moving, highly successful, highly specialized, predatory marine snail inhabiting the coastal waters of North America and the British Isles. Because of its close association with and ravage of young oysters it has attracted the attention of oyster farmers for at least the last 100 years. Although the critical observa- tions of oystermen and marine biologists during the last few decades have more accurately demonstrated the high concentration, broad distribution, and unusual destructiveness of this gastropod (Engie^ pers , com.), it probably became a ser- ious pest, concurrently with the development of widespread transplantation and cultivation of oysters Glancy (1953) states that it is one of the worst enemies of the oyster, and blames the steady decline in oyster-meat production in the United States from 231 million pounds in 1910 to 77 million pounds in 1950 in large measure to the depredations of this drill Stauber (1943) suggests that in addi- tion to the evident destructiveness of the drill, a selective elimination of the faster growing, thinner shelled oysters may be taking place, resulting in an increasing proportion of thicker shelled, slower growing, less desirable oysters - It thus seems appropriate at this time critically to evaluate the informa- tion available on the biology and control of U. cinerea The material presented in this synthesis has been assembled from numerous published and unpublished reports and personal communications through the generous cooperation of many persons and brings into bold relief the many voids in our knowledge of this mollusk Further research on the morphology, physiology, and ecology of this gastropod will be facilitated by the fact that it is available in astronomic quantities in a wide variety of habitats in the coastal regions of two continents, is markedly adaptable to new environments, is tolerant of a broad range of environmental factors, is relatively immune to predation and parasitization by other organisms, and is easily maintained in the laboratory. TAXONOMY The oyster drill of western Atlantic coastal waters has been known by a confusing list of scientific names: Fusus cinereus Say, Buccinum plicosum Menke, Buccinum cinereum Gould, Urosalpinx cinerea (Say), and Urosalpinx cinereus Say. Say(T822) first described this snail, giving it the name Fusus cinereus Say. Later Stimpson (1865) created the genus Urosalpinx in the family Muricidae, in- cluded Fusus cinereus Say as type, and called it Urosalpinx cinerea (Say) . The " latter is the proper form of the specific name; since Urosalpinx" is feminine, " " the adjectival specific name cinerea must agree in gender (Int, Code Zoo! . Nomen., Art. 14a, 1926, in_ Schenk and McMasters, 1948). The Family Muricidae has been placed m the order Neogastropoda, Subclass Prosobranchia, Class Gastropoda (Abbott, 1954). Say's type drill is probably the small form, rather than the giant one, since his measurement of the type is approximately 32 mm., and probably came from Great Egg Harbor, New Jersey, where Say stated, that he had collected the species (Pilsbry, pers. com.; Abbott, pers. com.), rather than from the eastern shore of Maryland and Virginia where the giant form occurs (Henderson and Bartsch, . " 1915; Baker, 1951). Unfortunately Say's type specimen of Fusus " cinereus has been lost and is thus not available for study (Pilsbry, pers. com.). All scientific names of mollusks used in this review are taken from the nomenclature of Abbott (1954) DISTRIBUTION Fossil Distribution U. cinerea is not a recent product of evolution. The genus was probably initiated as early as the Eocene (J. Gardner, 1948) some 60 million years ago. The oldest shells of the species have been taken in North Carolina (Richards, pers com.) and in Maryland (Verrill and Smith, 1874) in Miocene deposits approximately 28 million years old. Shells of the species are more abundant in Priocene deposits some 12 million years old of the Atlantic Coastal Plain in several localities in North Carolina and in Florida (Richards, pers. com, ; 1947) and also in South Carolina (Verrill & Smith, 1874). , The species is reported as common along the Atlantic Coastal Plain in Pleistocene deposits approximately one million years old and in a range similar to that of modern descendants (Richards, pers , oom ; Shimer & Shrock, 1944), Specifically it has been collected in marine -deposits in Point Shirley and Nan- tucket, Massachusetts, and on Gardiners Island, New York (Verriil & Smith, 1874); in Barnegat, Beach Arlington, Peermont, Holliday Beach, Two Mile Beach, Cape May and Heislerville, New Jersey (Richards, 1933; 1944); in the coastal terraces of the Pamlico formation amosag marine fossils in Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina, bat not in Delaware (Richards, 1936); in the northeastern two- thirds of the coast and the mid-ceittral west coast of Florida, but not on the southern or northwestern porttoas of this atate (Richards, 1938); and in one locality in Louisiana, but not m Alabama, Mississippi, or Texas (Richards, 1939), More recently U .