NeW YORK SHELL CLUB NOTES No. 2 December 1978 Page 3 
LIFE REVIVES IN OLD BREVARD 
Melanoides tuberculata (Muller) 
Morris K. Jacobson 
In a recent number of this periodical I reported on the presence 
and the subsequent destruction of a large colony of the imported 
tuberculate thiara snail, Melanoides tuberculata (Miiller), in the 
ra swimming pond on Port Malabar Boulevard in Palm Bay, Brevard 
ounty, Florida (NYSC NOTES No. 240.3,4. "Some Notes on the Mol- 
luscan Fauna of Brevard County, Florida, Part II."). But the de- 
struction I reported proved to be more apparent than real. 
When I returned to Palm Bay after a stay of three months in New 
York, I found to my satisfaction that the snail population had re- 
stored itself very well. The white, sandy bottom was again criss- 
crossed with snail trails, and duck footprints were entirely miss- 
ing. In general there seemed to be somewhat fewer Melanoides in- 
dividuals than were present before the duck slaughter, but this 
may have been due to the fact that there were many more juvenile 
forms than previously. Yet several individuals had reached more 
than an inch in length. Snails, large and small, were seen every- 
where and no ducks were to be seen. 
The entire incident is similar to one I witnessed in Cuba many 
years ago in which the snail collectors of Cuba (and I) played the 
role of the ducks, and the rare and beautiful brown Liguus flammel- 
lus carbonarius Clench, 1924,the role of the tuberculate thiara. 
dn one occasion a friend and I found ourselves in the town of 
Vinales in Pinar del Rfo Province. This was not far from the 
Mogote (a small, steep-sided limestone hill) de Pita, the type lo- 
cality and only spot where carbonarius was to be found. We decided 
to collect some specimens. We therefore asked a Vinales shell col- 
lector how one gets to the Mogote de Pita. 
"Sefor," he said to me, “you seek this delightful locality no doubt 
because of your desire to collect carbonarius, true?" I admitted 
the fact. 
"But it would be all in vain. The species is gone, collected until 
not a specimen remains. I know because I have been there several 
times. When your estimable Doctor Clench described the new form 
Many years ago, all Cuba's malacologists hastened to the spot as to 
a gold find, and soon no specimens were to be seen. A pity. 
I also thought it a pity and, with my friend, decided to give up 
the excursion since access to Mogote de Pita in the stifling heat 
of a Cuban summer was nothing to undertake lightly. 
A few days after this we were examining the shell collection of a 
Sefior Baquedo in Pinar del Rfo City. I was happy to find a large 
jar full of magnificent specimens of carbonarius. 
"You without doubt,” I said to Pequeno after he had presented a 
nice lot to me, "gathered these shells long, long ago soon after 
the form had been described." 
"On the contrary," he assured me, 
and there were many, many more there w 
take," 

"I collected them a few weeks ago 
hich I did not choose to 
