Page 8 June-July-Aug. 1978 __No.243 NEW YORK SHELL CLUB _ No?xs 
TRAVELS OF THE SCORCHED MUSSEL 
BRACHIDONTES EXUSTUS (Linné, 1758) 
In NYSC NOTES No. 242, pp. 4-5 we wrote of Urosalpinx cinerea and 
how it was transported to England where it became es ablished in the 
areas of Kent and Essex. 
Here is word of another traveler as reported in THE CONCHOLOGISTS' 
NEWSLETTER of September 1977, no. 62, p. 36. The article is here 
reprinted in its entirety: 
GENERAL NOTES 
In recent editions of Conchologists' Newsletter (Nos. 58 and 61) 
Margaret Brockbank has drawn attention to an interesting find in 
the Outer Hebrides. While walking on the beach at North Bay, 
Ardivachar, she noticed a melon stranded on the shore. It was en- 
crusted with Balanus balanus and the young of Ostrea edulis, while 
some Lepas anatifera were showing through a hole in the side. In- 
side the melon she found 26 specimens of an unusual mussel later 
identified as Brachyodontes exustus. These mussels are natives of 
the east coast of the U.S.A. and South America, from North Carolina 
to Uruguay and the West Indies. B. exustus likes slightly brackish 
waters, adhering to rocks and pilings. 
Now B. exustus has turned up in Irish waters. Mr. Michael Long, 
Dingle, County Kerry, who is Area Recorder for Fastnet (Area 37) 
found nine specimens attached to a metal buoy which was washed up 
on a beach just east of Dingle Harbour on 17th March 1977. The spec- 
imens, which ranged in size between 13.0 and 18.2mm, were identified 
by Mrs. Nora F. McMillen of Merseyside County Museums, Liverpool. 
Also attached to the buoy were a few Lepas anatifera and some oyster 
spat. 
B. exustus has not previously been recorded from Irish waters. It 
seems likely that the buoy to which these molluscs were attached 
travelled from the east coast of America or the West Indies on the 
north Atlantic drift to the shores of Ireland. 
Colm O'Riordan 
National Museum of Ireland, Dublin 
(Editor's note: Ostrea edulis Linne is a Euro ; 
; pean oyster; Balanus 
balanus Linne, the Northern Ridged Barnacle, is circumboreal; Lepas 
anatifera Linne, one of the Goose Barnacles, is rather cosmopolitan. 

MALACOLOGICAL ARTICLE OF THE MONTH 
The gastropods Acmaea (Collisella) limatula and A. (Notoacmaea) 
scutum respond to water flowing over the mollusce-predatory starfish, 
Pisaster ochraceus, Pisaster giganteus, Pycnopodia helianthoides and 
Leptastrias aequalis by rapidly moving up a su merged, vertical sur- 
2s e closer the limpets are to the starfish the greater is 
their upward displacement. The limpets respond weakly or not at 
Wea te less molluscan-predatory starfish. Oecologia 23:83-94; April 
Henry D. Russell 


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