Till now, Dietmar has collected approximately
one thousand species of Gastropods, many of them rare in other
areas of the world, but fairly abundant on the reefs around Lissenung
Island. The following gallery shows species typically encountered
by divers, as well as two species that were discovered among
the material collected by Dietmar.
There are about eighty species of Cone shells encountered
around Lissenung on a regular basis. Among the interesting finds
one is likely to make are certainly Conus aureus, bullatus, circumcisus,
coffeae, cylindraceus, legatus and moluccensis.
Among the larger cowries, the collector has a good
chance to find argus, mauritiana, talpa and testudinaria, occasionally
Dietmar picks up a fresh dead aurantium, I presume he never did
an effort to find a live one because he is crazy for Ovulids.
The beautiful dark red tigris on the right was taken from one
of the numerous wrecks around Kavieng.
The mappa from New Ireland are special because they
are the true mappa viridis. The shells are purplish-brown, with
a distinct dark spot on the base.
Tiny cowries are abundant in ledges and crevices.
Lissenung has a large variety of them, including mariae and its
unspotted variety suluensis, a yet unnamed species similar to
beckii, which is a very common species at certain depths.
Cribrarula cribraria and catholicorum are lovely from
the area around Lissenung Island, and also martinii and childreni
can be gorgeous and an average diver will find a fair amount
of acceptable dead ones. In total, at least eighty species of
cowries occur around Kavieng!!
Interestingly, stolida (on the left) tends to be reddish
like the ones from Kwajalein. The specimen of onyx melanesiae
remains the only one taken by Dietmar so far, but again, what
do you expect to find by looking only at gorgonians.
lets face it: they really are nice!! A selection from
the sixty or so Ovulids found around Kavieng.
Mitroidea are incredibly diverse around Lissenung.
At least 150 species have so far been collected. Sand-samples
from certain areas have produced numerous rarities. The species
shown here are typical for depths around the 20 m mark.
Dentiovula
lissenungensis Lorenz 2004 and Janaoliva amoni Sterba & Lorenz 2005
were discovered in the material Dietmar has collected, and well over
thirty other new species have been described between 2004 and 2022 from
the untouched, fully intact coral reefs around New Ireland.
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