NEWS

February 2025	A trip to Yucatan together with our friends from the Molluscan Science Foundation. We practised some non-invasive collecting methods and discovered a spectacular new species of Olividae, in the center of the most busy and touristy place we have ever seen.
January 2025	Finally, the release of the Cowries-book by Marco Chiapponi. It has been a long process, but the result speaks for itself and the reception among cowry enthusiasts is overwhelming.
October 2024	Cyprus, an island we had in mind for a long time. The conditions were great, we re-discovered a "lost" species of Conidae, currently under study...
March 2024	Another trip to the Maldives, the classic locality for seashells, Helengeli. The pumping of sand and massive construction activities have destroyed the ecology of that island.
February 2024	Taghazout, Morocco in search of interesting shell-grit, finally found in a small area with very heavy surf. Many potentially new species, stuff for future research.
December 2023	The IUCN workshop for the red list re-assessment of the Conidae was held at the Senckenberg Museum Frankfurt. Felix participated to evaluate the status of the more than 1000 species, together with other experts from all over the world.
April and November 2023	More trips to the Maldives (five in total since '22) we discovered two new species (Turritella janae and Archivolva cheripoda), and identified a new organ in Gastropods, the cheripodium, a hand-like structure at the frontend of the foot.
November 2023	Release of the MSF book "Carrier Shells - Garbage Collectors of the Oceans",written by Kurt Kreipl and Felix Lorenz. It features the gastropod family Xenophoridae that attaches foreign objects to their shells, human waste included.
February 2023	Fuerteventura. For something completely different, we went to this drab island to do some intertidal sampling for the collection of the MSF. We collected 66 species of seashells, all empty but in nice condition, on beaches and in tidal pools.
October 2022	Maldives again, same spot, as our work could not be completed, and we really like the place and have met lovely people.
July 2022	Maldives... While Jana had seen the beauty of the reefs in the early 1990s, Felix never went. The goal is to study the shallow water faunaof the southern part.
March 2022	We will meet our friends Eric and Maryse Le Court de Billot, to visit Rodrigues Island and examine the shellow lagoon waters and the shellgrit along the beaches.
March 2022	The Molluscan Science Foundation now exists for 10 years!! We have come a long way, and achieved a lot. Check it out!
October 2021	At last we could get out again, for a three week's trip to the Seychelles. The main target was verifying the existence of several cowry species that had not been found any more in recent years. We found all of them, and the reefs in better shape than on our 2017 trip.
August 2021	Two new species of cowries are described in the Conchylia magazine No. 52(1-2): Erronea corona and Erronea amralii, latter honoring the late Amr Ali, director of HEPCA.
November 2020	A long-awaited book was launched The Silvano Larini Cowry Collection. F. Lorenz - A portrait of an outstanding collection assembled by an outstanding personality. ConchBooks.
April 2020	The book "Seashells from Rólas, São Tomé. F. Lorenz and J. Kratzsch - A handbook to the molluscan fauna of Rólas at the southern tip of São Tomé. ConchBooks was launched. It is already out of print. You can download a pdf here.
January 2020	Sao Tomé, and the small island of Rolas in particular, turned out interesting for a variety of species, including a new Cerithium, which is abundant, but had never been named (now Cerithium lorenzi Bozzetti 2020). We decided to write a book about the place.
Sept. 2019	An exhaustive trip to Kwa-Zulu Natal, surveying the Sodwana Bay area (several new species were discovered) and the northern Transkei. Lots of exciting dives, a lot of material still in the progress of being studied.
March 2019	We went to the coast of Morocco to survey the occurrence of Schilderia achatidea, which turned out quite rare but otherwise typical for the West african coast.
January 2019	We have started a Facebook group called Marine Conservation where people can post all sorts of pictures and movies to do with threats of the seas

old News...

January 2018	We went to Mirbat and the Hallaniyat Islands in Oman, on board the Oman Aggressor, together with Wayne Hasson. We discovered ten (!) new species of Marginellidae, one of which has been named Dentimargo aggressorum Cossignani & Lorenz 2018. At the Mirbat Marriott Hotel Beach, Felix noticed that the abundant shallow-water species commonly known under the name Colina pinguis did not really resemble the nominate South African taxon. Subsequent examination of the shells revealed a new species endemic to the area of Mirbat. It has been named Colina lorenzi Bozzetti 2018. We had not expected to find so many new species in the limited time we spent..!
March 2018	The second Volume of the long-awaited Cowry book has been launched. A 7 years trip of compiling the 1400 pages in total has come to an end and there is time for new adventures.
April 2018	Felix went to Baltimore to give talks to sponsors and affiliates of the Molluscan Science Foundation, Inc. Shortly after USA he went to Western Australia to attend an expedition using a remotely operated vessel commercially collecting shells. Many new species have been discovered by this venture in recent years.
May 2018	We were invited by SUBEX and HEPCA to attend a biological symposium with diving and photography in the bay of Sahl Hasheesh in Egypt, hosted by Johann Vifian. We did a lot of diving and identified at least three new species of Turridae, one of which will be named after SUBEX. We then went on a private research trip on board our favorite Egyptian liveaboard, the MV Aeolus with our team of six. Hardly to believe, but we discovered a new species of Cowry, alas only a single fresh dead shell, yet so distinct that it will be named in the near future. Who knew...
August 2018	The School Project is entering the next level. Felix and Jana are busy editing the fact-cards. The idea of the school project is to put shells into the hands of 5-7 graders to trigger fascination and awareness - for many kids it will be the first time they can examine an item from living nature, sadly enough. Together with the Molluscan Science Foundation we will deliver posters, information for teachers and sets of readily available, dead-collected shells (approx. 20 species) plus fact-cards (see below samples) on a total of 40 selected species, and send them out to schools nationwide. The kids identify the shells they are given, do a show and tell with their classmates, scan the QR code for a link to additional information, movies, etc. In following lessons, the teacher will discuss  the vulnerability of the habitats the shells live in, the necessity to preserve them, and how each of us can contribute to protect the mollusca and their environments, e.g. by reducing waste, and conserving ressources such as water and electricity. The test runs we have done with a rather basic setup in schools in the US and in Belgium are overwhelming.
November 2018	To broaden our knowledge of the Caribbean, we went to Curaçao and Aruba. We left out Bonaire because a place where you are not allowed to even pick shells up from the beach is out of bounds for us. In Curaçao we hired the Curasub to look for shells to a depth of 300 m. We returned with rich material from the beaches of both islands, the intertidal zone and the upper sublittoral. A comprehensive report will soon be published in The Festivus magazine.