Page 8 June-July-Aug. 1980 No. 263 NEW YORK SHELL CLUB NotTRs 
CYPRAEA KUROH ARAL Kuroda & Habe, 1961 
Robert H. Janowsky 
This rare species is yet another of those rather ein eines chs ag ne 
seem to be found only in the waters off aa LUE ea ant oe Pa 
waters surrounding Tew an. Bere tony, very bias peatamey pete 
ly available for study, th : Srdeindl iy deschieeme 
ther attractive species. Lg y 
Sar ee ine A 1964 in "Coloured Illustrations of the Shells of 
Japan" (2)43, Pl. 19, Fig. 17 from the waters off eat son ae Kago- 
shima) off the southern portion of Kyushu, Japan, it ha cane me 
corded solely from this area until only a few years aes “ a ew 
specimens were trawled by coral fishing boats working a cubes n of 
80 to 100 meters off the southwestern portion of Taiwan. is is 
approximately the same depth at which the Japanese specimens: ang 
found. In 1970 Burgess reported in his "The Living Cowries" that 
fewer than six specimens have been collected. It is quite difficult 
to today state how many specimens have been found, but I would ven- 
ture an educated guess that fewer than twenty specimens can be found 
in collections today. 
Cypraea kuroharai bears a distinct relationship to, but is readily 
separable from, two species that are much better known, eee 
cidentata Gray, 1824, and Cypraea schilderorum Iredale, ut is, 
in my opinion, consistently cr fferent enough from both to be con- 
sidered a specific entity. Burgess, of course, recognizes Cypraea 
kuroharai as a species and states that it "is also similar to Cyp- 
raea schilderorum Iredale, 1939 but more closely resembles C. _Ssul- 
cidentata in most respects."* Walls, on the other hand, in his 
"Cowries - 2nd edition revised" treats Cypraea kuroharai as a syn- 
onym of Cypraea schilderorum. Burgess Setes the differences be- 
tween the three species quite clearly: "the columellar teeth (of 
Cc. kuroharai) end sharply at the aperture and are not at all pro- 
duced across the base as is characteristically found in Cypraea 
sulcidentata. The color of C. kuroharai is entirely shades of brown 
and tan, while in C. schilderorum the aperture and most of the ad- 
jacent base are pure white.' 
The specimen here illustreted is among the finest examples of the 
few specimens that I have ever seen. It is in the collection of 
Mrs. Waverley Harmon of New York City, to whom I am indebted for 
allowing my close study of this specimen, thereby enabling me to 
write this article. This specimen measures 35.3 mm in length, 24.4 
mm at its maximum width and 18.1 mm from its base to the highest 
point on its dorsum. It was collected in 1979 by a commercial fish- 
ing trawler working at an approximate depth of 150 meters (nearly 
twice the depth previously recorded for this species) from waters 
off of Tosa Bay, Shikoku Island, Japan, which is probably at this 
time the northernmost point from which specimens of C. kuroharai 
have been found. In size this specimen falls about midway between 
those reported by Burgess (42.7 tp 22.2 mm) but I have seen a speci- 
men that measured 45.5 mm. 
The color of the dorsum of this specimen (and all others that I have 
seen ) is a rich honey brown on which two more or less distinct, 
lighter tan bands are present. The marginal bands are of a shade 
* Burgess, "The Living Cowries," p. 193. 


