Curator’s Choice: The Ficus Shell

This is Ficus eospila, a carnivorous snail from the fig shell group with a dazzling foot like the train of a black-and-white ball gown. Howard/Berry Curator of Malacology Henry W. Chaney, Ph.D. photographed this individual on a 1993 collecting trip in Western Australia with Barry Wilson PhD then at work on the two-volume compendium, Australian Marine Shells. To study the mollusks of remote Cape Preston, they drove off-road, boated around a mangrove swamp, and tramped out onto a vast exposed sand flat during a colossal low tide. Western Australia is home to some of the most dramatic tidal fluctuations in the world, and a sudden reversal of the tide can leave you stranded with a surprisingly deep moat to cross before regaining shore. Today this specimen and Dr. Chaney are safely at home among millions of shells in the Department of Invertebrate Zoology at the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History. 

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