Questions from Tom
Nucella canaliculata (Duclos, 1832)
- Petersburg, Alaska
Confusion
over a Neptune species.
I
have been confused (about this and many other things)
for several years regarding what exactly is Neptunea
lyrata (Gmelin, 1791). For years I was happy to
apply this name to neptune specimens that were mid-sized,
fairly smooth whitish, with spiral brown ridges
and white interior. Then when I went to Petersburg,
Alaska we found a large population of a dark chocolate
(both interior and exterior colors) neptune in the
intertidal zone. The photo above was taken of this
unnamed shell sitting atop a column of its eggs.
Now what we had called N. lyrata had been observed
laying eggs in a mat-like formation in the intertidal
and subtidal areas of Juneau, Alaska. So what could
this chocolate brown shell be? First I understood
that it might be N. middendorffi MacGinitie and
then was led to believe that it might actually be
the “true” N. lyrata and that those
shells we and many others had been calling N. lyrata
was an unnamed species. In the recent “The
Family Buccinidae Genus Neptunea” by Fraussen
& Teerryn (A Conchilogical Iconography ConchBooks
2007), the species N. lyrata is shown on several
plates, the shell looking most like the one above
being on Plate 7 Fig. 2 and this specimens was also
from Petersburg. But in all illustrations in this
review showing the interior, it is white while that
of the above shell and others I have collected in
Petersburg over a ten year period are dark chocolate
brown. So in additional to the atypical egg column
there is this color difference. Is there any significance
to these two features which seem to differ from
what is described (and/or obderved) for N. lyrata?
