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[Notocypraea]

Nice tigris Ozcyp.

I also like tigris.
In all my tropical diving I have personally not found tigris to be common (with the exception of one location in the Northern part of the Gulf of Thailand, an old WWII shipwreck!). I have personally only observed live Cypraea tigris at four locations... 2 locations close together in the northern part of the Gulf of Thailand (where I collected a large 105mm rust stained specimen on the shipwreck) and 2 locations on nearby small islands in the thousand island group off the coast from Jakarta, Indonesia.

I've never seen a single live specimen diving at other tropical area's like Malaysia, Vanuatu, Fiji & Vietnam... weird!

Mr Pyrum - I've never heard of very large specimens being found in WA with the exception of Ningaloo Reef which has been a marine park for years!? Be interesting to know where they were collected!

An older friend of mine collected melwardi (from pure white to std cribraria) in the Capricorn island group off QLD (near Gladstone) in the mid 70's (now a protected area). He said at extreme low tide in ~1-1.5m of water. I have 2 pure white specimens in my collection from one of the islands (North West island I think!?). Lovely shells!

Simon (Mr Comptoni)

[benicypraea]

Dear Simon (Mr. Comptoni)
I hope you´re very well.
I don´t know about the exact spot for large tigris collected by my friend in W.A, because I don´t see this friend from time ago. He was living in Australia for 10 years aprox., from the 80´s to the 90´s, and then, returned to Spain, where he continues to live.
By this way, all of the material from Australia that he has in his collection have been personally collected, exchanged or purchased many years ago, while he was living there, and I think that he doesn´t have any recent shells collected in protected areas today. He told me that some of the shells were obtained in that time by divers, specially for Zoila roselli, friendii friendii, etc. and he collected only shells just in the low tide (Erronea errones, cylindrica, arabica, eglantina, erosa, helvola, subviridis, etc) plus Amoria zebra and others.
When I saw the collection, really I was mainly interested in take a look of another cowry´species, like Zoila, not for tigris; because this, I didn´t ask to him about the locality of the specimens.
Ningaloo reef is a very nice place. I know the place because the great whale sharks. But I didn´t know about the presence of large specimens of C. tigris there, that, obviously, I can imagine perfectly because they are very variable in shape and size.
Some of the tigris that he has in the collection were obtained in Papua-New Guinea. A very interesting place for seashells, I think.
I believe that there are several shipwreks in some reefs of the the New Guinea´s water. Perhaps some of them are home of rusty tigris. I can imagine this because this man showed me two nice rusty arabica arabica from there with a wonderful orange coloration. They were collected in a portion of a coral reef fully covered with fragments of an old shipwreck, not necessary from II World War. But, like always, they were collected many years ago.
Congratulations for your rusty tigris collected in a shipwreck. Also for white melwardi.
Nice pictures of your lovely tigris and melwardi are welcome, if you don´t have any trouble. I have plenty of philippine tigris, plus some from Kenya, India, and one from Fiji. But I don´t have rusty tigris. They´re exceptional shells!!
Last thing: Yes, you´re right. Many specimens of Zoila friendii friendii from Busselton jetty displays a great bluish pattern with paler zigzag bands.
Perhaps the dark one that I have now was collected in another spot, perhaps not far from Busselton, but, not exactly in the jetty water.
Regards
_________________
I started to collect seashells since my childhood but I decided to focus on cowries in 1990. I like all kind of cowries, freaks, normal, nigers, dwarfs...
Also I collect conidae and Muricidae.

[ozcyp]

Hi Benicypraea,

Finding a pure white melwardi would not be as hard as you may think. As long as your searching in their habitat it would just be a matter of time and of course, some luck. The hard part would be finding one in gem condition as many have growth lines and flaws.

I don't believe cribrarula catholicorum has been found in Queensland to my knowledge. I have yet to obtain one for my collection, so I have limited knowledge about this tiny shell, except for what information is on the internet and available books.

Regarding tigers, my friend used to live in New Guinea and speaks of seeing clusters of tigers feeding on seagrass. He said it was common to see hundreds of them in a couple of hours snorkeling. He was more interested in finding fire coral, where he would get coxeni hesperina. He also talks about finding some rusted tigers in shipwrecks.

This is one of my favourite coloured tigers I have. It's not rusted, but displays a nice dark colour with a low mantle line. It's sitting next to a dwarf tiger.

Regards,
Iain

[benicypraea]

Hello Ozcyp:

Thanks for info about melwardi & catholicorum. Very interesting, too. Sometimes a certain species of shell is not hard to get, but the true "gem" shell is a very different thing. You´re right.
So tigris was a common shell in New Guinea. It must to be a pleasure to snorkeling and see plenty of coloured tigris in their natural environment. A friend of mine who visited some reefs in Mozambique said me a similar thing about this great cowry. Great coloured tigris that you have!!. Large shell is a schilderiana, if I´m not wrong.
I will try to take a picture of some tigris from my coll. (if my digital camera has a good day...).
Good day,

_________________
I started to collect seashells since my childhood but I decided to focus on cowries in 1990. I like all kind of cowries, freaks, normal, nigers, dwarfs...
Also I collect conidae and Muricidae.

[ozcyp]

Hi Benicypraea,

Yes, the picture of the large tiger is a schilderiana, around 127mm.
Look forward to seeing a picture of your tigers when you have the chance.

Kind regards,
Iain

[benicypraea]

Hello Ozcyp:

The size of your pretty coloured schilderiana is not a bad thing for these days... At this moment, I have only one schilderiana in the coll, close to yours in shape but not exactly in colouration, and the size for this one is 103 mm in lentgh.
I don´t know if the size for this shell is good today, but certainly the shell is very heavy, solid and the dentition is well developed, somewhat different to typical tigris tigris from other localities in Indopacific Region.
The others I have are Cypraea tigris from several localities. I want to take some pictures of the best specimens, I will post these as soon as possible.
Kind Regards
_________________
I started to collect seashells since my childhood but I decided to focus on cowries in 1990. I like all kind of cowries, freaks, normal, nigers, dwarfs...
Also I collect conidae and Muricidae.

[Bart]

In 1983 and 1985 I spent a month at Mahé, Seychelles, Indian Ocean.
Though several areas were closed (Nature Reserves - protected areas) there were enough left.
I did quite some snorkeling at the westcoast of the Island: Mare Anglaise,
Beauvallon Bay, Port Glaud and Anse à la Mouche.
My favourite area for Cowries remained Mare Anglaise (in the N.W. Bay).
Half way my trip in 1985 I already knew where to look for Cowries so
this helped a lot.
That particular day in July 1985 I collected on one single reef (at daytime):
Cypraea annulus (common)
Cypraea arabica (my only one I found that trip)
Cypraea asellus (only 1)
Cypraea caputserpentis (only 1) *
Cypraea erosa (3 specimens)
Cypraea fimbriata (only 1)
Cypraea helvola (common)
Cypraea histrio (4 specimens)(extremely nice)
Cypraea lynx (common)
Cypraea moneta (fairly common)
Cypraea tigris (1 specimen; I left a 2nd juvenile crawl around)
Cypraea vitellus (only 1)
So a total of 12 species in a single day. Only caputserpentis* was not collected alive.
_________________
I am always interested in buying or exchanging Cowries, especially when they are very variable.

[Sleepycat]

Got my best ever total in Australian waters today (not saying much as I have still not collected that far north.) Today's trip was to Mooloolaba, southern Queensland; collected near Point Cartwight in the morning and Alexandra Headland in the early afternoon. In about four hours of beachcombing and shellgrit searching at medium tide saw about 150 intact dead cowries at the two sites combined. In total found 16 species.

gracilis was ridiculously common and made up about half the total; also got lots of xanthodon, many of which were not much larger than some of the gracilis.

Full lists:

Pt Cartwright: gracilis, xanthodon, caputserpentis, errones, erosa, labrolineata, clandestina (several!), humphreysii, stolida, arabica, vitellus, carneola, fimbriata

Alexandra Headland: gracilis, xanthodon, caputserpentis, errones, erosa, labrolineata, clandestina, ziczac, fimbriata, listeri, staphylaea

At Pt Cartwright got a suspected "subfossil" (or maybe just extremely bad!) stolida as well as the fresh one, but not sure, will post images sometime.

Also one ovulid and one trivia.

Very interesting to not find annulus here and asellus was also missed by its fan club!

Kevin.