Bistolida fuscomaculata (Pease, 1865)
Dark-blotched cowry, 8-16mm

In recent years, this species has been very rare at Kwajalein. In the 1960s and 1970s, there was a healthy population on a shallow reef on the lagoon side of the south end of Ennubuj (Carlson) Island, but this seemed to have vanished by the 1980s. The only other place the species has been found with some regularity is on the intertidal reef, particularly between Kwajalein and Little Bustard and between Bigej and Meck Islands. However, finding the shell there requires many hours of backbreaking labor looking under rocks at low tide. Specimens have also been found in the man-made reef quarry off Gagan Island in the northern part of Kwajalein Atoll. Other than that, specimens can very rarely be seen to depths of about 8m on some large lagoon pinnacles, such as those off Kwadak Island, or even more rarely in seaward reef surge channels at night, where the few specimens found have all been in the shallower portions of the channels nearest the intertidal reef.

The fuscomaculata form differs from the similar Bistolida goodallii primarily in the much darker and larger spots on each side of the shell on both the anterior and posterior ends. Bistolida goodallii is found in much of Polynesia (excluding Hawaii), while B. fuscomaculata is from parts of Micronesia and Melanesia. The specific name refers to the dark anterior and posterior blotches.

Below is a slightly juvenile specimen that has not finished its dorsal blotchy pattern yet.

The specimen below was found under a small loose round chunk of finely branching Porolithon algae on the lagoon side of Ennubuj Island on 21 October 2013. These images were captured from video.

10.8mm shell from 16 September 1982

10.2mm shell from 29 April 1990

13.35mm shell from 27 July 2009

Created 1 April 2008
Updated 1 April 2024

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