The Cowry, the Calastoma and the Dragon. Three Great Keikis at Kahalu'u

  A couple days ago Sandra and I timed the tide and headed down to Kahalu'u.  The beaches had been opened for just a couple days and there were a few people at the outside picnic tables and a few

Reticulated Cowrie juvenile  Kahalu'u May 2020

sheltering in place under beach umbrellas.  Although the beach is open, the shelter remains closed.  We wasted no time grabbing our fins and masks and heading into the water.  Halfway through a big rising tide,  it was about  +1 foot, no crawling over the rocks today.

    Out in the bay, we started examining lumps of coral.  Immediately we found a very unusual cowrie sitting on the sand in a coral depression.   As you can see, the smooth dorsum of the shell was very dark with a confused swirl and slash of grays and dark browns.   One band reminded me of the storm pattern in  Navajo carpet.  Although one rarely dwells on the foot of the cowrie shell, this one was pretty nice, mostly a creamy white with seriously dark teeth dipping into the depths of the shell.  Having taken three pictures we returned the cowrie into the sea, deep inside the coral depression.

Reticulated Cowrie juvenile, foot.  Kahalu'u May 2020

   This was the first of twp animals I needed help identifying.  Neither Mike Severn's Hawaiian Seashells or Hoover's Sea Creatures contained anything like this bizarre shell.  My motto is, "When in doubt, fire off some emails."   And so the Great Oz, Pauline Fiene and Marta deMaintenon, PhD were simultaneously consulted with the blazing headline:

LOOK AT THIS COWRIE!

   Pauline won the speed portion of the contest.

 Hi Jeff:   I knew without even looking at the photo what it would be! It is a juvenile reticulated cowrie. Since it doesn’t look like the adult, nor like any cowrie in books, people are always wondering what it is :-)    Pauline

    As Pauline is the blushing bride of Mike Severns, it sort of makes you wonder why she didn't tell him to put it in the book.  Maybe she likes getting emails from crusty old men.

This flash picture permits a look into the depth of the cowrie shell matrix.

    John Hoover came in second in the speed division with the same identification.  And then, a close third, but with indisputably the best information, came the doctor:
 

That's a juvenile/ subadult, that's why the pattern is weird. Looks like one of the Mauritia group species. Check Stenders' web site, he has some pictures of juveniles under M. maculifera that are pretty similar.     M

 

   So check it out. Here is a link to the muculifera page on Keoki Stender's  site.  Find the juvenile in the second row from the top and you will agree that my three experts are correct.  Keoki's picture of the foot is much stranger than mine.  Obviously his cowrie has not yet achieved the adult shape of the shell, lacks the flat foot of beautiful white with burgundy teeth.  Keoki's cowrie is still sucking on a bottle of formula while our's is enjoying a glass of Chateau Margaux!

https://keokistender.com/marine/mollusks/gastropods/cowries/cypraea-maculifera.htm

Like the shifting of the continents, so is the shell of the juvenile cowry

 

    But even more insightful is the idea of a cowry shell in transition, the different shell elements moving around like continental shelves over geologic time.  If you look carefully maybe you can find Gondwanaland or maybe even Pangaea.  The picture I took with the flash really permits you to look deep into the shell, to lose yourself in the mystery.  Just think, those swirls and slashes of confusion will soon coalesce into the harmony of an adult reticulated cowrie.  Its enough to give ya goose bumps.

    A big thanks to Marta for opening up the meaning of this phase in the cowries' development.

 

   We swam for awhile, just enjoying each other's company and a large number of the usual fish.  The pandemic has had the side effect of hugely reducing the tourist pressure on this struggling jewel of Kahalu'u.  Bob Hillis did not coin the phrase, "Full contact snorkeling" for no reason.   After three months of rest,

Star eye parrotfish Calotomus carolinus juvenile, Kahalu'u 2020

  the coral looks better and there are clearly more shells full of critters.

   Before our next big find, I saw a Strasburg's blenny in a coral depression.  About the same time, he saw me and darted, tail first, into a hole.  Strasburg's is a medium sized blenny with a light chocolate checkerboard pattern.  I tried to wait him out, but he just sat in his hole giving me the fish eye.

    Luckily, something better was just a meter or so away.  Playing with a variety of other keikis, Sandra and I watched a small green fish, roughly 2 inches in length and very shaggy around the fins and face.  He boasted three lines of brilliant white spots on his mottled green flank.  I had the sense that I might have seen this unusual fish before, but had never identified it.  He proved to be very patient and permitted us the opportunity for several photos.  

 

The shaggy look.  Star eye parrot keiki turning towards you.

  Sandra and I were convinced that this two inch sprite was an extreme juvenile wrasse of some sort.  We poured over John's book, thinking the two spot wrasse was the closest to what we had seen.  Curiously, the photo of the two spot juvenile was, in the words of the Redoubtable SKG, "taken by my friend Pauline."  With this in mind, we gave the Queen of Nudibranchs first chance to flaunt her erudition.  By this morning, lacking an answer, we turned it over to the Great Oz, who referred us to page 206 in his book.  There we found a fine picture of the juvenile star eye parrotfish, Calotomus carolinus.

 

    The second picture that I'm showing you is of the fish turning towards the camera.  Thus you get a good look at the shaggy visage that this keiki presents to the world.  This is one peculiar little fish.  

 

    One might have though that this was enough treasures for one day and, indeed, we decided to head for the barn.  Right away we got stalled by a large punctured miter that contained a hermit crab.  We gave the crab a couple minutes to show himself, but finally satisfied ourselves with pictures of the nice

Punctured miter with a hermit crab inside

big shell.

 

   Again we started swimming for the beach.  after only a few strokes I heard Sandra yelling.  She sounded like a cowgirl at the Calgary Stampede.  "Whoop, whoop, whoop!" she yelled.  When I caught up with her, she was pointing at a big green dragon wrasse.  My unpublished data suggests that only 5% of dragon wrasses are green.  This one was the greenest ever.  Like the juvenile star eye, this guy was very cooperative.  Unless you have something against the color of money, you ought to like this fish.  

  Sooner or later Governor Ige is going to invite the tourists to return to these very Sandwich Islands and full contact snorkeling will, once again, be the rule of the day at K Bay.  In the meantime we can enjoy the splendor of this special place and the abundance of our underwater wildlife.

jeff

B'gosh and Begoren.  Its a Dragon Wrasse dressed for St. Paddy's Day!