15/11/2011
Conchas vacías
Conchas vacías de la arena
que dejó el mar cuando se fue,
cuando se fue el mar a viajar,
a viajar por los otros mares.
Dejó las conchas marineras,
pulidas por su maestría,
blancas de tanto ser besadas
por el mar que se fue de viaje.
P. Neruda
Maremoto. Ed. Pehuén. Chile, 1991.
26/10/2011
En los Baños de Diana
23/10/2011
10/10/2011
16/07/2011
14/07/2011
05/07/2011
04/07/2011
29/06/2011
Xenophora (Xenophora) Fischer von Waldheim, 1807
Xenophora (Xenophora) mekranensis konoi Habe, 1953. Filipinas.
10/06/2011
09/05/2011
06/05/2011
04/05/2011
Clausilia (Clausilia) Draparnaud 1805
Clausilia (Clausilia) bidentata abietina Dupuy 1849. Val d'Aran.
Cochlostoma (Obscurella) Clessin 1889
Cochlostoma (Obscurella) partioti (Saint-Simon 1848). Val d'Aran.
03/05/2011
Oxychilus (Ortizius) rateranus en Jaén
El pasado año se descubrió la presencia de Oxychilus (Ortizius) rateranus en una cueva de Jaén.
24/04/2011
The House of Mapuhi
“Have you heard, Alec?” were his first words. “Mapuhi has found a pearl — such a pearl. Never was there one like it ever fished up in Hikueru, nor in all the Paumotus, nor in all the world. Buy it from him. He has it now. And remember that I told you first. He is a fool and you can get it cheap. Have you any tobacco?”
Straight up the beach to a shack under a pandanustree Raoul headed. He was his mother’s supercargo, and his business was to comb all the Paumotus for the wealth of copra, shell, and pearls that they yielded up. He was a young supercargo, it was his second voyage in such capacity, and he suffered much secret worry from his lack of experience in pricing pearls. But when Mapuhi exposed the pearl to his sight he managed to suppress the startle it gave him, and to maintain a careless, commercial expression on his face. For the pearl had struck him a blow. It was large as a pigeon egg, a perfect sphere, of a whiteness that reflected opalescent lights from all colors about it. It was alive. Never had he seen anything like it. When Mapuhi dropped it into his hand he was surprised by the weight of it. That showed that it was a good pearl.
He examined it closely, through a pocket magnifying-glass. It was without flaw or blemish. The purity of it seemed almost to melt into the atmosphere out of his hand. In the shade it was softly luminous, gleaming like a tender moon. So translucently white was it, that when he dropped it into a glass of water he had difficulty in finding it. So straight and swiftly had it sunk to the bottom that he knew its weight was excellent.
“Well, what do you want for it?” he asked, with a fine assumption of nonchalance.
“I want — ” Mapuhi began, and behind him, framing his own dark face, the dark faces of two women and a girl nodded concurrence in what he wanted. Their heads The House of Mapuhi were bent forward, they were animated by a suppressed eagerness, their eyes flashed avariciously.
“I want a house,” Mapuhi went on. “It must have a roof of galvanized iron and an octagon-drop-clock. It must be six fathoms long with a porch all around. A big room must be in the centre, with a round table in the middle of it and the octagon-drop-clock on the wall. There must be four bedrooms, two on each side of the big room, and in each bedroom must be an iron bed, two chairs, and a wash-stand. And back of the house must be a kitchen, a good kitchen, with pots and pans and a stove. And you must build the house on my island, which is Fakarava.”
Jack London
21/04/2011
14/04/2011
La perla de Alá
La mayor perla del mundo fue hallada frente a las costas de Palawan, Filipinas, en 1934. Wilburn Cobb narró la historia de su descubrimiento en la revista del Museo de Historia Natural de New York, como una aventura no siempre creíble en los detalles. La Perla se hallaba en el interior de un ejemplar de Tridacna gigas y uno de los buzos, nativos musulmanes, murió atrapado por la concha.
En la forma irregular de la gran perla, de 24 cm. de diámetro y 6,4 kg. de peso, se apreciaba con claridad un turbante y un rostro. Según el artículo de Cobb “En esta imagen el Panglima se sorprendió al descubrir un parecido con Mahoma. Luego, como sus siervos estaban asombrados, el anciano se postró ante la perla y se puso a orar.”
Lo real y lo fantástico se entremezclan cada vez más. El mismo autor escribe en 1969 un extraño acontecimiento. Un Chino llamado Li dijo que se trataba de una perla cultivada hacía más de 2.500 años, que un amuleto de jade había sido introducido en una concha de tridacna pequeña y que, tras sucesivas fases, cambiando el tamaño o edad de la concha, la perla creció hasta ser la mayor del mundo. Posteriormente, desaparece en una tormenta en las proximidades de las islas Filipinas.
Las cifras que se llegaron a pagar, las antiguas y actuales dataciones pueden ser objeto de otro comentario sobre esta maravilla donde la aventura, el infortunio o la muerte hacen que siga siendo un enigma más próximo a la mitología que a la historia de ciencia.
The Pearl of Allah. Natural History, 44(4): 197-202 by Wilburn Dowell Cobb
Caitlin Williams & Kathie Hodson: ”The Pearl of Allah: the Facts, the Fiction and the Fraud”, Pearl-Guide.com
Foto: Drow male. Réplica de la Perla de Alá. Aquarium Finisterrae, A Coruña, Galicia, España.
04/04/2011
17/03/2011
16/03/2011
Diverse
Biplex perca (Perry, 1811)
Homalocantha anomaliae (Kosuge, 1979)
Melongena corona (Gmelin, 1791)
Las mensajeras del mar
En la ventana, en el patio, en la huerta hay conchas vacías.
No siempre sabemos cómo llegaron hasta allí, a quedarse en esos sitios.
Algunas fueron de un familiar, otras un regalo o un olvido.
No siempre sabemos cómo llegaron hasta allí, a quedarse en esos sitios.
Algunas fueron de un familiar, otras un regalo o un olvido.
Fotos: mgm, Cynthia Sumagaysay
13/03/2011
12/03/2011
11/03/2011
02/03/2011
01/03/2011
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