Conchology Section
Auckland Museum Institute

President's Report
Those who missed our last meeting missed a wonderful social night. We had the usual sharing and selling of shells. We had a short discussion time, then more sharing and a lovely supper!

We are considering another shell auction in early October. This will depend on the number of people who wish to sell shells, the availability of the hall and the auctioneer. If you would like to put lots in the next auction please let me know before June 15, we will then know whether it is worth going ahead.

Looking forward to seeing you on June 13 — Heather Smith.

Thank You
A huge "thank you" to all those people who assisted with the auction on 29th April. The day was a great success due to the amount of work that went into preparing shell and book lots, behind the scenes set up and assistance on the day. Your support and assistance is greatly appreciated by the Club.

Club Badges For Sale
Beautiful club badges with red background and gold accents available for sale at $8.00 (plus postage and packaging if applicable).
Please contact Jan if you are interested.

Birthdays
It was a pleasure celebrating Heather and Margaret’s birthday at our last meeting. Thank you for supplying a fantastic supper Heather.

General
Our logo is the lovely Poirieria zelandica (Quoy & Gaimard, 1833) but did you know that there are two other New Zealand species in the genus:
- Poirieria kopua (Dell, 1956) — it is much smaller than zelandica with stouter peripheral spines, and a complete absence of subsidiary spines
- Poirieria syrinx (Marshall and Houart, 1995) - it too is smaller (up to 45mm) than zelandica but the protoconch is larger. The most noticeable difference between these species is that syrinx has fully tubular spines that are set further behind each varical rim.

June Meeting
Our next meeting is going to be very interesting. For those of us who don’t have a microscope we are going to see some marine creatures that we didn’t even know existed! Some members are bringing in microscopes and Margaret Morley will be telling us what we are looking at!

Please bring in a tray of shells from one location. We also like seeing any new shells you may have added to your collection, or anything that may be of interest to view under the microscopes.

Club member, Angela Carter may also bring in some of her artwork incorporating shells.

We look forward to seeing you on Tuesday, 13th June 2006 at Epsom Community Centre, 202 Gillies Avenue, Epsom. You are welcome to arrive from 7.00 pm with the meeting commencing at 7.30 pm.

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