7+( &21( &2//(&725 -DQXDU\ 7+( 1RWHIURP &21( WKH(GLWRU &2//(&725 You are now perusing issue # 19 of TCC (actually this is our twenty-first issue, since we began with a trial issues number (GLWRU 0 and along the way we had a special issue 14A) and I thank António Monteiro you for your continued interest in this bulletin. TCC has been a great success – of which I am understandably proud – and /D\RXW that is due to the many authors who have sent their articles for André Poremski publication and to the many readers whose enthusiasm actually &RQWULEXWRUV keeps us going. Remy Devorsine Edward J. Petuch This is of course our first number in 2012. In the last year we Philippe Quiquandon published three numbers, all of them packed with interesting José Rosado information and beautiful photos. Not only that, we managed Jon F. Singleton to make our website vastly attractive to all collectors and re- Manuel J. Tenorio searchers interested in Cones, with addition of the very im- David Touitou portant work by Mike Filmer, which is still undergoing some Thierry Vulliet Paul Wilson updating; hopefully during the current year Paul Kersten’s cel- ebrated Checklist will also be uploaded in its entirety (a few examples are already there), and that will mean that by visiting www.theconecollector.com everybody will find a fantastic wealth of information about our favourite subject! At the same time, following the great success of our 1st Inter- national Cone Meeting in Stuttgart, in 2010, we have proudly announced the second such event. It will take place at the end of September 2012 in La Rochelle, France. In this issue you will find more information about it, including an impressive list of speakers who have already agreed to participate. The Or- ganizing Committee (Manuel Jimenez Tenorio, Bill Fenzan, Michaël Rabiller, Paul Kersten and myself) is doing every ef- fort to meet the expectations raised by our previous meeting, and we are sure that everybody joining us at La Rochelle will spend a fabulous weekend, have fun and learn a lot. So, be sure to plan your trip! Very soon we will send further information about costs, participation fee, accommodation, etc. I hope that the present and future issues of TCC will continue to deserve everybody’s interest and that they will help to stimu- late interest in the study of Cones. And, without further ado, I 2QWKH&RYHU leave you with the new articles. Enjoy! Conus textile from the Gold Coast, Australia. A.M. Image courtesy of Thierry Vulliet 3DJH3DJH 7+(&21(&2//(&725,668( :KR·V:KR LQ&RQHV(GZDUG-3HWXFK Being the son of a Chief Petty Officer in the US While in High School, I made three trips to Mexico; Navy, I was always moving around the country with two as a summer exchange student in Veracruz State my family. Although I was born in Maryland, I moved and one on a shell collecting trip with a friend and his to San Diego, California when I was four and picked father. While in Mexico, I collected along the Veracruz up my first shells on the beach at Silver Strand (I think coast and found beautiful live specimens of Lindaco- they were Cerithidea californica). After looking into the nus spurius atlanticus and Gladioconus mus. My favorite tide pools at La Jolla, and seeing the rich diversity of Mexican shell collecting locality, however, was at Aca- colorful marine life, I was totally hooked and decided pulco, where I got to see my first Panamic cone species. to become a marine biologist. I never swerved from my I was absolutely overwhelmed by seeing live specimens obsession with marine life and this was really reinforced of Purpuriconus vittatus, Ductoconus princeps, Che- when my father was stationed lyconus purpurascens, Gladioconus in San Juan, Puerto Rico when I gladiator, and Harmoniconus nux. I was nine. For almost three years, I was totally hooked on cones! Later, lived in that tropical paradise and while collecting near Guaymas on spent every weekend snorkeling on the Gulf of California, I also col- the reefs off San Juan. I amassed lected beautiful Dauciconus virga- a large shell collection and turned tus, Gradiconus regularis, Ximeni- my bedroom into a small marine conus mahogani, and Pyruconus museum. My first cones were col- patricius. While working for Rich- lected in Puerto Rico; Gladioconus ard Kurz, I was able to see thou- mus and Stephanoconus regius. sands of specimens of worldwide cones, particularly the first com- Those bucolic years of collecting mercial Africonus specimens from land snails in tropical rain forests the Cape Verde Islands (that’s and diving on pristine coral reefs where I received the mislocalized, came to an abrupt end, when my badly-documented specimens of father retired from the Navy and a little cone that I later named A. moved our family to Wisconsin. anthonyi). One day, I was sitting under a co- conut palm in San Juan and the All through my college years at the next day I was walking through snow flurries in Mil- University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (as a Bachelor’s waukee! The shock of leaving the tropics, with their and Master’s student in Zoology), Richard Kurz sup- vibrant colors, and winding up in gray, overcast, freez- ported my research and collecting trips and allowed me ing Wisconsin (in November) was almost too much to to travel all over the world in search of rare shells. I bear. In every house that we lived in after that, I had would trade some of these specimens to Richard and a tropical “retreat” in the basement, where I had glass he would sell them to his customers, giving him ac- cases full of shells, echinoderms, and corals and aquaria cess to species that had never before been commercially filled with tropical fish. Fortunately, I soon met Rich- available. This also allowed me the opportunity to col- ard Kurz, the renowned mail order shell dealer from lect and conduct research across the world: in Australia Milwaukee, who took me under his wing as an appren- (where I lived for two years); in New Guinea and the tice. This changed my whole life and career. Solomon Sea Islands (Louisiade Archipelago, Rossel Is- 7+(&21(&2//(&725,668( 3DJH lands, Calvados Chain, D’Entrecasteaux Islands, etc.); All this research and travel really paid off, as I was able the Fijis; Tahiti and Moorea in the Society Islands; and to discover and name 90 species of worldwide living Japan and the Ryukyu Islands (Amami Islands). For cone shells and 85 fossil cone species (mostly from Flor- my Master’s research, I collected cones in West Af- ida), and around 1,200 species of living and fossil gas- rica, including the Canary Islands, Western Sahara, tropods in total (covering 53 families)[Note: Ed Petuch Senegal, Gambia, Sierra Leone, and the Cameroons. has published 15 books on living and fossil mollusks For my doctoral research, I also collected cones in the and 150 scientific papers. Ed.]. Of these, my favorite Bahamas, Belize, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Colombia, living cone species are the Bahamian Lindaconus lindae Venezuela, Brazil, Uruguay, Grenada, the Grenadines, (400 m depth), Purpuriconus theodorei, and P. richard- and Barbados. Because of this intensive collecting and binghami, the Honduran Tenorioconus harlandi, and travel, I was able to visit 47 countries and to learn how the Senegalese Africonus echinophilus. to ask for shells and shell collecting localities in Span- ish, Portuguese, Wolof, and Pigin Motu! I’m still involved in intensive field work and have been concentrating my efforts on the Florida Keys. This past I was accepted to the Rosenstiel School of Marine and summer, I rediscovered the “lost” Dauciconus aure- Atmospheric Science, University of Miami, for my onimbosus, a beautiful yellow, orange, and pink species Ph.D. studies in 1976 and immediately started my that lives in deep water north of the Dry Tortugas. I field work in the Caribbean and South America. While also determined that the Florida Keys coral-dwelling travelling in Colombia and Venezuela, I befriended Gradiconus anabathrum tranthami (Petuch, 1995), several shrimp boat captains and I volunteered to work originally named as a subspecies of the western Florida on their boats for free (if I could keep all the shells that G. anabathrum anabathrum (Crosse, 1865), is far more came up in the nets!). For four years, I worked with the variable than I originally thought and extends all along Vikingos de Colombia shrimp company (in Cartagena, the Florida Keys, from Key Largo to the Dry Tortu- Colombia) and was able to visit many unexplored ar- gas. The recently-named G. antoni Cargile, 2011 and eas, such as the Goajira Peninsula, the Golfo de Mor- G. tortuganus Petuch and Sargent, 2011 have now been rosquillo, and the Golfo de Uraba. I collected twenty found to be simply color forms of the highly variable species of cones, alone, from one trip to the Goajira G. anabathrum tranthami and should be considered to Peninsula; including Dauciconus vikingorum (named be synonyms. These kinds of exciting discoveries and for the shrimp company), D. goajira, D. poulosi, D. insights are what keep me going in science! penchaszadehi, Gradiconus gibsonsmithorum, G. paulae, and G. parascalaris (all of which were new to science). For the past 28 years, I have been a Professor of Geol- ogy in the Department of Geosciences at Florida At- Unfortunately, the Cartagenera, the boat that I usu- lantic University in Boca Raton, Florida (part of the ally worked on, was later captured by drug gangs off Florida State University System, with over 33,000 stu- the Goagira Peninsula.