Category: Announcements

Silent Auction

The July meeting will include a silent auction with 10 lots. The shells will e on view when the meeting opens. Below are photos of three of the shells to be auctioned off. Happy bidding!

ZOOM meeting, Wednesday, Oct. 14th.

Wednesday October 14, 2020 7 P.M.

Broward Shell Club ZOOM meeting. Carole Marshall will be giving a program,  Cephalopods on Coins, Paper Money and Exonumia. I will have live footage of Octopuses in motion. Great video by Brenda Hill, who has graciously loaned her video to me. Many stories of why these cephalopods came to be on coins and exonumia, including the Forest Octopus of the Cascades and the Kraken of the Game of Thrones.  Learn about the Octopus who predicted soccer games and some million year old ammonites.  Tune in on Wednesday at 7 P.M. Zoom Meeting: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/828192 85812?pwd=Y1A3bVVoallOQzU4N UwxaUpnNFNldz09 Meeting ID: 828 1928 5812 Passcode: 844342 Mobile Phone call (if you need to connect by phone only): +13017158592,,82819285812#,,,,,,0#,,844342# US (Germantown) +13126266799,,82819285812#,,,,,,0#,,844342# US (Chicago) Dial by your location: +1 301 715 8592 US (Germantown) +1 312 626 6799 US (Chicago) +1 929 205 6099 US (New York)

ZOOM Programs for September

ZOOM Programs for September

September has always been an iffy month for a Shell Club meeting. Usually it is hurricanes, this year it is COVID.  I try to schedule our ever popular show and tell for September and we will try to do that in our ZOOM meeting for this September.  So dust off an old shelling story or two and prepare to share it with the group.

IF, for some reason, we do not have enough show and tell stories, I have prepared a short program on Coins and Cephalopods. Most of you know I collect shells on coins, paper money and exonumia.  Since 1999, they have become very important to me. I have money with mollusk motifs from about 145 different countries. For this program, I will only focus on the money with an Octopus, Squid, Nautilus or Cuttlefish.

I hope you get to tune in and we get to see your smiling faces again. Perhaps we can have another real meeting soon.

Carole Marshall

May Program notes

Anne K DuPont Bio

Anne DuPont is a Scientific Diver and underwater photographer specializing in opisthobranchs.

She is one of the co-authors of “Caribbean Sea Slugs, a field guide to the opisthobranch mollusks from the tropical northwestern Atlantic.

She has 3 Opisthobranchs named after her.

She is a Museum Associate in Malacology at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County.

She is a volunteer with the Florida Natural History Museum,

Anne is a Regular-Service volunteer with the Florida Fish & Wildlife Research Institute.

She is on the Speakers Bureau for Palm Beach county Environmental Resources Management.

Her favorite pastime is diving in Lake Worth Lagoon. She has been diving in the Lagoon for 25 years, and is very knowledgeable on the underwater life found there.

Her photos have been published in numerous books, magazines, educational DVDs and videos.

April Program

TTitle for my presentation: Bivalves; in Sickness and in Health
The talk introduces principles of molluscan pathology, the factors causing pathological changes in mollusks and the different categories of disease.

Biography

Dr. Inke Sunila accomplished her Ph.D. Thesis in Physiological Zoology at the University of Helsinki in Finland in 1987. She lived at the Tvärminne Zoological Station in the northern Baltic archipelago for several years, sampling blue mussels in the field, studying their pathology and exposing mussels to environmental pollutants in the laboratory. She continued her research on bivalve diseases at the Cooperative Oxford Laboratory in Maryland. After that she accepted a position as a post-doc research scientist at George Washington University Medical Center, Department of Pathology in an AIDS research group.
For 20 years Dr. Sunila worked for the State of Connecticut, Department of Agriculture, Bureau of Aquaculture in Milford, CT as the State Shellfish Pathologist/Environmental Laboratory Director. She monitored and managed CT’s bivalves for different shellfish diseases, developed disease-resistant strains and performed health certifications for imported seed. From 2000-2003 she was also Adjunct Assistant Professor at the University of Connecticut, College of Agriculture, Department of Pathobiology and Veterinary Sciences.
After retiring from State service, Dr. Sunila relocated in Lake Worth, Florida, to continue research on southern marine ecosystems. Dr. Sunila is known as a scientist who doesn’t hesitate to get her hands dirty and knows how to retrieve samples from the sea. She is involved in several grant-funded bivalve research programs, has numerous publications and has taught several students from different universities from all over the world.

February Program

Our Program for February is Dr. Thomas Annesley,

Thomas Annesley is “Active Professor Emeritus” at the University of Michigan and Deputy Editor of the journal Clinical Chemistry. He has always had an interest in oceanography and spent summers in California, where his uncle dropped Tom off at the coastal tidepools on his way to work and the picked Tom up on his way home.

Tom has been listed in Who’s Who in Medicine Academia, Who’s Who in Science and Engineering, and Who’s Who in America. He has published more than 200 articles and presented more than 175 invited lectures in 10 countries.

At the Bailey-Matthews National Shell Museum Tom does public lectures, beach walks and the live tank talks. He is also President of the Sanibel-Captiva Shell Club.

The title of his talk is “Cone Snails, Tennis Rackets, Pain Medications, and the Broward Shell Show”

Tom’s presentation will focus on scientific discoveries involving cone snails and their toxins. But as with many advances in science, there are elements of luck, happenstance, intrigue, mistakes, and creating lemonade out of lemons that contribute to the story. Dr. Annesley will show us how the supposedly unrelated topics of tennis, pain medications, and even the Broward Shell Show fit into the story of cone snails.

January 2019 Program

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This month we are going to have Gene Everson as our guest speaker. Gene is a past President of the Broward Shell Club.Serving twice in 1978-79 and again 1982-1984 but now living in Louisville, Kentucky.
As an airline pilot Gene got to travel and anytime he got the opportunity he would dive. He has dove in just about every temperate Ocean and Sea, foregoing the Arctic and Antarctic.Gene is a world class shell exhibitor and has won more trophies for his exhibits than any person in history.
This month he will be giving us a program on “Shell Collecting in Mozambique and Madagascar”.
He recently took a trip with Silvard Kool and just his stories dealing with travel will test the patience of the calmest person alive.
Come travel with Gene and Silvard as the shell East Africa.

November Program

For November, we have one of our favorite malacologists back with us. Dr. Jose Leal. Science Director and Curator of the Bailey-Matthews National Shell Museum on Sanibel Island will be telling us about a wonderful research cruise he worked in September. He worked with Dr. Greg Herbert (the cruise’s Chief Scientist) from the University of South Florida in one of his annual surveys to map molluscan communities on the central part of Florida’s continental shelf in the Gulf of Mexico. The group of four scientists also included Dr. Paul Larson from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission and Rebecca Mensch, National Shell Museum Marine Biologist. The scientists and a group of Dr. Herbert’s USF students sailed on the R/V Weatherbird II, the 115-ft flagship of Florida Institute of Oceanography’s small fleet. From their website: “The Research Vessel (R/V) Weatherbird II is home ported on Bayboro Harbor at the University of South Florida (USF) St. Petersburg Campus. She is equipped with advanced laboratories, oceanographic devices, and sensor technology designed to enable scientists and students to study and learn about various aspects of the ocean’s biological, chemical, geological, and physical characteristics.”

Dr. Leal’s presentation will showcase and discuss a selection of uncommon and unusual mollusks and shells collected in the occasion and incorporated into the USF collection.”