NEW YORK SHELL CLUB NOTES No. 258 January 1980 Page 1 
— Sn  LUALY 1550s Frage 1 
The NEW YORK SHELL CLUB meets on the second Sunday of each month, 
September through June, in 
ROOM 426, AMERICAN MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY 
NEXT MEETING: SUNDAY, JANUARY 13, 1980, at 2:00 pm 
PROGRAM: To start the new year we will have a special 
program. DON'T MISS IT! Edward Petuch of 
the Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmos- 
pheric Sciences will be our guest speaker. 
His subject will be: NEW AND UNUSUAL SPECIES 
FROM BRAZIL, VENEZUELA AND NORTH GOLOMBIA. 
DISPLAY: Specimens from the collection of Al Scarpetti. 

CONTENTS 
Page 
Further Remarks on Lambis R. Tucker Abbott 1 
Nick Katsaras, 30-year Member 2 
Highlights of the November Meeting Milton Werner 2 
AMU 1980 and AMU Conservation Reports AMU Newsletter 3 
letter to the Editor Archie L. Jones 4 
Some Notes on the New Journal, "Bulletin 
of the Inst. of Malacology, Tokyo and 
Comments on Pterynotus miyokoae Robert H. Janowsky 5 
"Range" Extension Fred Cannon 

FURTHER REMARKS ON LAMBIS 
R. Tucker Abbott 
I feel some corrections and additional explanations are in order 
concerning Indian Ocean Lambis after the remarks by R. Plotkin (see 
NYSC NOTES, No. 256, p. 1). Firstly, regarding the relative abun- 
dance of any marine species, populations vary in density throughout 
the geographical range of a species and are also subject to seasonal 
appearances. Nonetheless, both Lambis crocata and Lambis chiragra 
subspecies arthritica are relatively common to abundant in many 
parts of their respective ranges, and in my 1961 monograph ( INDO- 
PACIFIC MOLLUSCA, Vo. 3), on the basis of my own collecting experi- 
ences in east Africa and those of others in the central Indian 
Ocean, I stated that both Lambis were common. 
The Yale-Peabody Expedition of 1957 found arthritica moderately 
common in the Maldives. It would be interesting to examine Plot- 
kin's specimens to see if, as he claims, true chiragra chiragra oc- 
curred there also. If it does, and if it shows no signs o nter- 
gradation with arthritica, it would be best to consider arthritica 
as a full, separate species. 
inci i j in Sri Lanka 
There is, incidentally, a form of chiragra chiragra 
which has a very dark, smoothish, irty aperture. whether this is 
ecologic or genetic in origin I do not know. 
i j i t to real- 
Some readers of my monograph, including Plotkin, seem no 
ize that Lambis Mone trated! tan interesting geographical cline in 
i i ther words, in 
the degree of sexual dimorphism in the shell. In o f 
one par of the geographical range males and females may have shells 



