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Marble Quarry/Natatorium Also Produces Conchological Gold |
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By Harry G. Lee |
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| Once again my wife's family mustered in Manchester, Vermont (VT) for an September get-together.** As with last year's agenda, there was a little free-time on Saturday for off-site activities. While cousins and in-laws scattered about to hike, visit boutiques, bookshops, and neighbors' homes, I found myself with a couple of hours and a car - since I'd dropped off a party of three at the Appalachian Trail near the mountain known as "Mad Tom." Anticipating another opportunity to find a prosperous community of landsnails near a calcareous exposure, and not relishing a long mountain climb, I asked my son, Bobby, who actually has spent much more time in this immediate region, where I might find an abandoned quarry in our valley. He told me he'd swum in a flooded marble quarry a few miles northwest of Manchester Ctr. on the road (VT 30) to South Dorset. It didn't take me long to get there, and the site was easily recognized from the highway as a few dozen swimmers and sunbathers were enjoying this special resource. | |
| In hot anticipation of a scene like the one at the quarry near the top of Mt. Aeolus, where empty large snail-shells were strewn about, I walked the outskirts of the tract on which the one-acre pond had been created. Although there was plenty of exposed marble, not a snail - living or dead was to seen with the naked (or bespectacled) eye. After twenty or thirty minutes of striking out, I thought about calling it quits, but I convinced myself that, although it wasn't very promising, it wouldn't take more than a couple minutes to gather up some leaf litter from sheltered areas on or at the base of the marble boulders. I filled up a giant Ziploc bag and headed back to the Homestead, where I knew I could get some living snails for club members Bill Frank and Joel Wooster to photograph. | |
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| Well, I got my livestock, and the guys got their photos, and there is even more to the story. After my return to Jacksonville, I dried the leaf litter overnight in the oven (180 degrees), kneaded and sifted the dessicated product, and came up with about a pint of coffee-ground-like material (see figure 1; that's a quarter on top of the heap). It didn't take more than a few seconds with the microscope before I found I'd struck gold! After about ten hours (over the rest of the week) of systematic searching, the culling was completed (see figure 2; the field is the size of a postage stamp; 268 shells). Later I identified and completed the curation, allowing me to record the following species (phylogenetic order; preceded by the number of specimens worth keeping): | |
| 1
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| 7
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| 2
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| 1
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| 73 |
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| 2 |
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| 154
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| 27
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| 1 |
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I had never collected more than about one-half dozen Vertigo gouldii
or a dozen Punctum minutissimum. This was the first time
Vallonia costata had been found in the state of Vermont! And .... I
don't think I'll leave home without several Ziploc bags in my suitcase. Since I'd patched together my landsnail finds in a phylogenetically haphazard way in the first VT report, a cumulative, minimally-annotated list of what I've collected follows (green: new Co. record; indented: new VT record): Landsnails collected in Bennington Co., Vermont as of 9/19/04 Carychium exile
H. C. Lea, 1842 Ice Thorn Gastrocopta armifera (Say, 1821) Armed Snaggletooth Gastrocopta contracta (Say, 1822) Bottleneck Snaggletooth Gastrocopta pentodon (Say, 1822) Comb Snaggletooth Pupoides albilabris (C. B. Adams, 1841) White-lip Dagger Vertigo ovata Say, 1822 Ovate Vertigo Vertigo ventricosa (E. S. Morse, 1865) Five-tooth Vertigo Vallonia excentrica Sterki, 1893 Iroquois Vallonia**** Haplotrema concavum (Say, 1821) Gray-foot Lancetooth Punctum minutissimum (I. Lea, 1841) Small Spot Helicodiscus parallelus (Say, 1817) Compound Coil Helicodiscus shimeki Hubricht, 1962 Temperate Coil Anguispira alternata (Say, 1817) Flamed Tigersnail Discus catskillensis (Pilsbry, 1896) Angular Disc Catinella vermeta (Say, 1829) Suboval Ambersnail Novisuccinea ovalis (Say, 1817) Oval Ambersnail Oxyloma retusum (I. Lea, 1834) Blunt Ambersnail Euconulus fulvus (Müller, 1774) Brown Hive Glyphyalinia indentata (Say, 1822) Carved Glyph Hawaiia minuscula (A. Binney, 1841) Minute Gem Mesomphix cupreus (Rafinesque, 1831) Copper Button Mesomphix inornatus (Say, 1822) Plain Button Nesovitrea electrina (Gould, 1841) Amber Glass Paravitrea multidentata (A. Binney, 1841) Dentate Supercoil Striatura exigua (Stimpson, 1850) Ribbed Striate Striatura ferrea E. S. Morse, 1864 Black Striate Striatura milium (E. S. Morse, 1859) Fine-ribbed Striate Zonitoides arboreus (Say, 1817) Quick Gloss Zonitoides nitidus (Müller, 1774) Black Gloss Vitrina angelicae Beck, 1837 Eastern Glass-snail Appalachina sayana (Pilsbry, 1906) Spike-lip Crater Euchemotrema fraternum (Say, 1821) Upland Pillsnail Neohelix albolabris (Say, 1817) Whitelip Triodopsis tridentata (Say, 1817) Northern Threetooth Xolotrema denotatum (Férussac, 1823) Velvet Wedge 43 species; 16 new county records, of which 6 are new state records vs Hubricht (1985). **see Shell-O-Gram Jan-Feb., 2004. and Advancing Vermont Malacology
**** Collected at the
Homestead on 9/11/04 and numbered "42" on
Advancing Vermont Malacology (page two) |
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