The Tampa Bay Top Snail
One most remarkable shallow-water species from Southwest Florida is the Tampa Bay Top Snail, Calliostoma tampaense (Conrad, 1846). Recently, I photographed one of our resident top snails, collected by Amy Tripp in Collier County. (Under a Florida State Special Activities License, museum staff and associates normally collect a limited supply of live mollusks for our live tanks, which are superbly maintained by staff marine biologist Rebecca Mensch.) The image of the live anima