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World's
most beautiful annularid
No doubt anyone
that is studying molluscs or is just an advanced member of the collector
community soon begins to make a selection of favourite species, that
someday one wishes to be lucky enough to find and admire, these are
mostly hard to find, and of a special beauty: Annularia pulchra (Wood)
as the largest caribbean member of the family Annularidae fits in this
category.
Victorian collectors
in their times began to receive samples of all different creatures the
travellers found in their journeys, at some point this species reached
their cabinets too, and due to the elegant shape of this animal it became
popular and fair numbers still are found as the stars of old collections.
But something happened, the datas were never accurate enough, but such
a large species is difficult to be lost,and at some moment the land
malacology became less popular and it was as forgotten, later on for
one reason or another, again interests arise to find it and people began
the search again for this species after this break, nothing but subfossil
or sunburnt shells where found near the large stonewalls that were the
former homes for this species; the people in the valleys began growing
oranges and other crops and using pesticides, roads were built and human
impact increased in all the areas, may be this was the answer?; at least
today we know that it is not extinct, a colony was found in my second
journey, very localized but supposedly still safe of human impact.
It is a special
encounter, relocating such a beautiful species: The animal is pale pink
coloured and as all the prosobranchs a large, this time like dark blue
coloured eye, is located at the base of the antennae. There is sexual
dimorfism, males are smaller than females and some were found mating
under leaf litter at he base of cliffs. It is supposed to eat lichens
or other plant remmaints found at these limestone areas.
It was also possible
to find a couple of areas with subfossil specimens, these sites are
the legacy of previous journeys looking for living colonies, in fact
whole mountains around are very poor in snails, everything is covered
in an iron red dust, the areas show also to be very dry (but so are
the actual living colonies' habitat), but are thought to be the previous
home of this species, as the fossil record shows. What happened to these
area?; no operculums were found in these sites (their structure is very
weak), but some sunburnt shells were, still showing colour traces; is
it possible that these sites assisted to the extinction of these former
colonies not so long ago?.
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Snailing
in the southern coasts
The
southern coasts are very different to the eastern or central mountain
areas, these were in average wet areas, now, the south is dry, the vegetations
is sometimes xerophytic and nearly sunburt limestone hills with a very
low vegetal cover are also a home for many species.
Hellshire
Hills are the famous spot of the rediscovery of the Jamaican Iguana, a
formerly supposed to be extinct large species that was brought to life
by a hunter that hunt a couple on this spot. Had not the chance to see
one, but as said by a Kingston biology student these are really fast and
as always the area is rocky enough to find a hide away. As you see not
just molluscs are special, but all the life forms to be found on this
island..
A
problem I had sometimes in this kind of spots was, that hermit crabs no
doubt had choosen the best shells as alive specimens are difficult to
find sometimes, try stealing a fresh shell of a uncommon species from
a 4 inch long crab... no way!, and they are so difficult to take out from
their hiding places that it is worthless. So not a humid place, and the
amount of alive found samples is low if you are not lucky to find some
colonies under stones. I dream of having a rainy day in these places,
it should be fantastic.
There
is a bird (can't remember the name) that almost exclusively feeds on snails
and uses certain small caves for chipping / breaking the shells and taking
the meat, this is a good way for determining the different species found
in the area although smaller species are often missing.
So
all the southern coast hills were interesting snailing sites, even close
to the main city Kingston, there were a handfull of places to explore
and find more endemic species.
And
finally the areas south of Negril, in the south western coast, were also
promissing, home for diverse species as Sagda occidentalis, Thelidomus
asper cognatus, and different species of Pleurodonte and Poterias.
But strange the dry and hot climate did not make it so difficult to success,
a good catch was taken for being such a place.
The
End
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2000