Official Florida State Shell - Triplofusus giganteus (Kiener, 1840) Albino Specimens

    It has been the common knowledge among shell enthusiasts in northeast Florida for over 30 years that the intracoastal waterway in St. Johns County between St. Augustine Inlet, in the north, and Matanzas Inlet, on the south, harbored a population of so called albino Triplofusus giganteus - those specimens with a pure white shell. This population may have been first formally chronicled by Gary Gordon in 1980 when he wrote of his quest for this morph with veteran St. Augustine shell collector Fred Chauvin (See:  "In Search Of An Albino Horse Conch" ).

    Neither of the two areas where the albino specimens have been found (Matanzas River just north of Marineland and the Tolomato River near St. Augustine Inlet) have been routinely shelled during the past decade. However, increased collecting efforts in the Tolomato River, beginning during the Fall of 2007, have demonstrated that this morph is not uncommon at that location.

Albino specimen from the Tolomato River near the Usina Bridge, St. Augustine, St. Johns County, Florida, March, 2008

Albino specimen from the Tolomato River near the Usina Bridge, St. Augustine, St. Johns County, Florida, March, 2008

Triplofusus giganteus (Kiener, 1840) Albino Juvenile In Situ     Triplofusus giganteus (Kiener, 1840) Albinos     Triplofusus giganteus (Kiener, 1840) Albino

Albinos

   Triplofusus giganteus (Kiener, 1840) Albino

Albinos

Triplofusus giganteus (Kiener, 1840) Color Varities (orange to albino)   Triplofusus giganteus (Kiener, 1840) Color Varities (orange to albino)

Color Varities (orange to albino)

Back