Curator's Blog

Museum, research, and collection updates from Dr. José H. Leal, plus Shell of the Week, which highlights a different species every Friday. Most Shells of the Week—but not all—are found in Southwest Florida.

Dr. José H. Leal serves as the Bailey-Matthews National Shell Museum’s Science Director and Curator. He received his Ph.D. in Marine Biology and Fisheries from the University of Miami and has served at the Museum since 1996. Under his leadership, the Museum was awarded its first accreditation from the American Alliance of Museums in 2010.

José H. Leal

May 1, 2020

An Exquisite Land Snail

In a paper published posthumously in the April 2020 issue of the National Shell Museum’s scientific journal, The Nautilus, Dr. G. Thomas Watters from the Museum of Biological Diversity at Ohio State University in Columbus, and his collaborators, named the new species Rolleia simonaikeni, a half-an-inch wide, attractive land snail from the Dominican Republic. The species was named after Simon Aiken, from the UK, who collected some of the specimens in the study. Dr. Watters had

José H. Leal

Jul 24, 2015

The Little Dove Strawberry Cockle

The Little Dove Strawberry Cockle, Americardia columbella H.G. Lee & M. Huber, 2012, is a moderately rare species of the family Cardiidae found in the Gulf of Mexico and along the coasts of Southwest Florida. Its shell has a more triangular shape in relation to other local cockles, and the “pinched” aspect (caused by the presence of a posterior groove, or sulcus) sets it apart from its closest relatives in the genus Americardia. Dr. Harry G. Lee, from Jacksonville, Florida, a

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Curator's Blog

An Exquisite Land Snail

The Little Dove Strawberry Cockle