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GENERAL INFORMATIONS
ABOUT SPECIES AND ISLANDS
In order to have an exhaustive species list, I used two different
books :
-
Marine Shells of the Seychelles
Alan Jarret book
- The Manual of Living Conidae
Röckel, Korn & Kohn
Both are recent and good litterature to start
with. Unfortunately these two books offer a different list concerning
Seychelles cone shells. The one from A. Jarret shows 56 species
and Röckel, Korn & Kohn one roughly 80.
I must add the following information to your knowledge : even if
the Marine shells of the Seychelles is the most recent book,
the informations inside were collected a long time ago while Mr
Alan Jarret was living there. He started the book but never finished
it and much later, he decided to publish his huge work. At the time
he had poor informations about deeper species from 20-60m as scuba
was not as common as today. I guess he and his mates did not have
the chance to get their hands on all the species there. That's propably
the reason why there is a huge difference between these two books.
Seychelles are unique and may not own all the spcecies listed in
The
Manual of Living Conidae
though. I can take the example of Conus textile, Linné
1758. It seems that the species is not present there... Mr Jarret
did lot listed it and I never seen it even if elsewhere it is a
common species... And it shall be present when you read the The
Manual of Living Conidae.
Meaning the real number is not known yet (and may not be since many
more years). We can say that it shall be between 60 and 80.
Another important remark
: Seychelles islands are spread over a wide territory (115 islands).
These islands can be separated by huge distance. And like French
Polynesia, Seychelles Islands may vary a lot depending of the island
you study. The most known and visited (dived) islands are
Inner ones (Mahe,
Praslin, La Digue, Curieuse, Silhouette, Ile du Nord, Félicité,
Marianne, Grande Soeur, Petite Soeur, Cousin, Cousine, Frégate,
Aride,...) and they all are made from granite rocks (shown
on any local postcards). In the same time you may have coral islands
(still Inner Islands) like Denis Island
(Far & North of Praslin) and Bird Island.
Much farther, you may reach Outer Islands,
made of atolls :
- Coetivy Island
- Amirantes Group : Remire, D'Arros, Desroches, Etoile, Boudeuse,
Marie-Louise & Desnoeufs
- African Banks : Banc Africain & Ile du Sud
- St.-Joseph Atoll
- Poivre Atoll
- Alphonse & St.-Francois Atolls : Alphonse, Bijoutier &
St.-Francois
- Farquar group : Farquar Atoll & Providence Atoll
- Aldabra group ("close" to Madagascar)
: Aldabra Atoll (which
has many endemic species, like birds, fishes,... maybe seashells,
and is a protected Natural Reserve by UNESCO), Cosmoledo
Atoll, Astove & Assomption
We can say that these farther islands are less visited and seashells
there were not that much studied, meaning that some species may
only live on these far wild islands and one must reach these quiet
spot to try to gat his hands on all species...
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