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  • Home
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  • COLLECTING
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A Cypraea special: John Batt

"My interest in shells began as a child collecting many different families but over the years, I have gradually focused my interest. I now specialise in only three families, Harpidae, Pleurotomariidae and my personal favourite, the Cypraeidae, of which I now have a collection of over 5,000 specimens. I have enjoyed collecting trips to Tahiti, Raratonga, Hawaii and most recently New Caledonia and Fiji in search of the more unusual specimens."
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Bistolida stolida crossei Marie, 1869  New Caledonia. Set of five melanistic and rostrate specimens, the largest being 49mm, the smallest 33mm; all from Prony Bay, in southern New Caledonia, dived under dead coral slabs at 3–5m.

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Nesiocypraea teramachii neocaledonica Lorenz, 2002  55mm, New Caledonia. A beautiful and very rare teramachii from New Caledonia. This specimen was trawled off Banc Jumeau Ouest on sand bottom at 300m.

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Barycypraea fultoni amorimi f. massieri Lorenz, 1991  This is a special favourite. A very nice specimen with none of the usual granulation and a fine Maltese cross and a whopping 82mm. Trawled off Quissiro on muddy sand bottom at 80–100m.

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Zoila eludens Raybaudi, 1991  On the right, a specimen 67mm from the original batch of shells collected at Exmouth, NW Australia. The specimen on the left is a newly acquired shell from South Murion Island, Exmouth, dived inside sponge on limestone reef at 22m.

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Zoila friendii friendii Gray, 1831  W. Australia. Close up of six of a great set of 15 variations of this species including a semi-golden specimen from the Ludwig Gabielli collection. This specimen is pictured in the Monograph of the Living Zoila by Felix Lorenz.

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Zoila jeaniana aurata Raybaudi, 1979  W. Australia. The first specimen is a hump-backed specimen at 90mm, the second an 88mm shell and the third is a 60mm dwarf. All were trawled by Taiwanese fishermen in the late 1970s.

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Zoila ketyana ketyana Raybaudi, 1978  Another shell trawled by Taiwanese fishermen off Point Quobba, W. Australia at 125m. The shell on the right is Zoila ketyana bataviensis Lorenz & Morrison, 2001, dived off Kalbarri on sponge at 35m.

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Umbilia armeniaca Raybaudi, 1993  The typical specimen of 100mm from the Great Australian Bight; the U. a. diprotodon is from Port Lincoln, dived on sponges at 50–60m.

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