Christer Erséus wrote;
> The tubes are certainly the calcareous linings of the burrows of Kuphus sp., a
> kind of bivalves related to shipworms.
I was looking into this as Christer's message came in.
Following a suggestion of Jim Carlton's that it was a teredinid bivalve tube,
and a check of Ruth Turner's monograph, I thought it was probably the broken
tube of a Kuphus polythalamia, (Bivalvia, Myoida, Teredinidae) first named
(described isn't the word for it) as Serpula polythalamia Linnaeus, 1767,
apparently uniquely 'mud' dwelling amongst teredos, and known from the Solomon
Islands.
Linnaeus had before him the work of Rumphius 1705 - there may be a plate of a
tube in that.
Geoff
--
Geoff Read <g.read at niwa.co.nz>
http://www.annelida.net/
