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Marco Passamonti

  • Biodiversity Journal, 7 (1): 079-088 - MONOGRAPH

    Marco Passamonti
    Barycypraea teulerei (Cazenavette, 1845) (Gastropoda Cypraeidae): a successful species or an evolutionary dead-end?

    ABSTRACT
    Barycypraea teulerei (Cazenavette, 1845) (Gastropoda Cypraeidae) is an unusual cowrie species, showing remarkable adaptations to an uncommon environment. It lives intertidally on flat sand/mud salt marshes, in a limited range, in Oman. On Masirah Island, humans probably drove it to extinction because of shell collecting. A new population, with a limited range, has recently been discovered, and this article describes observations I made on site in 2014. Evolution shaped this species into a rather specialized and successful life, but has also put it at risk. Barycypraea teulerei is well adapted to survive in its habitat, but at the same time is easily visible and accessible to humans, and this puts it at high risk of extinction. Evolution is indeed a blind watchmaker that ‘has no vision, no foresight, no sight at all’. And B. teulerei was just plain unlucky to encounter our species on its journey on our planet.

  • Biodiversity Journal, 6 (1): 449-466 - MONOGRAPH

    Marco Passamonti
    The family Cypraeaidae (Gastropoda Cypraeoidea): an unexpected case of neglected animals
    Proceedings of the Eighth Malacological Pontine Meeting, October 4th-5th, 2014 - San Felice Circeo, Italy

    ABSTRACT
    The family Cypraeidae Rafinesque, 1815 (Gastropoda Cypraeoidea), commonly called Cowries, are particularly well-known among shell collectors, because of their beauty and relative availability. While most species are common in shallow reef environments, some other are quite hard to find, because they may come from remote or hardly accessible habitats, or they are in fact just rarely found. Because of this rarity and beauty, several cowries get high market values among collectable shells. This relevant economic interest produced two kind of outcomes: a proliferation of taxonomic complexity, and a very detailed knowledge of every variation of a given species, making cowries collection one of the most specialized ones. Notwithstanding this, it is quite remarkable that cowries had attracted very little interest by biologists and professional malacologists. Few scientific studies are available to date. This review attempts to overview some of the major biological highlights of the Family, to promote future researches in this diverse group of gastropods.