Since I started publishing information about the invasion of the Caribbean and Florida by Naria turdus back in May 2022 (see below), I started receiving notes from divers and collectors narrating their findings, particularly in the Florida Keys, Miami-Dade, Broward, Palm Beach, and Martin counties in south and southeast Florida. One of them, Dr Darin Goldman, has been providing a steady stream of information on the species. A couple of weeks ago, Dr Goldman, who is an avid SCUBA diver, sent four images of his catches of empty Thrush Cowrie shells. Each image was taken after a single dive, each showing all the shells collected by Dr Goldman during that particular dive. During these four dives, he collected 10, 16, 20, 36 shells. But just this week, he picked up more than 150 empty Thrush Cowrie shells in a single 2.5-hour dive (photo)! Although we don’t have any hard evidence to back this up, I never heard of anyone (including myself) who had collected comparable numbers of the similarly sized local cowrie species, Naria acicularis or Luria cinerea during a single snorkel or SCUBA dive in Florida. Apparently, they are not that common. Native species may be displaced or otherwise affected by invasive species. How are these native species coping with the introduction of the Thrush Cowrie? Has anyone found them lately? And what is killing the Thrush Cowries in such large numbers? Please let us know your opinions!
Photo: Dr Darin Goldman
Past posts about the Thrush Cowrie in this blog:
The paper where we first reported the presence of the Thrush Cowrie along the coast of the continental USA:
