A LITTLE KNOWN HALIOTIS SUBSPECIES FROM MAGDALENA BAY, LOWER

CALIFORNIA, MEXICO: A RE-EXAMINATION AND PHOTO STUDY OF H.

FULGENS TURVERI BARTSCH, 1942.

Buzz Owen
P.O. Box 601
Gualala, Calif. 95445
buzabman@mcn.org

Haliotis fulgens turveri Bartsch, 1942

ABSTRACT validity has been questioned; Talmadge

Twenty four specimens of H.
fulgens turveri, a poorly-known and
somewhat contentious ssp. of H. fulgens
Philippi, 1845, are illustrated with high-
resolution color photography. Several
specimens of H. fulgens fulgens and H.
fulgens guadalupensis Talmadge, 1964,
are illustrated for comparison. Factors
for the justification/validity of the ssp.
including its different shell morphology
and isolation from the nominate race are
presented.
INTRODUCTION
Seven species of Haliotis are
known to occur on the Pacific Coast of
North America. In addition, five ssp.
have been described – only one of which
has received much attention in the
literature and is widely considered valid;
H. kamtschatkana assimilis Dall, 1878,
which occurs from central California to
northern Lower California, Mexico.
This will be the third in a series
of papers treating the ssp. found on the
west coast of Lower California, Mexico.
Two earlier papers dealt with two of the
three ssp. endemic to one of its offshore
islands; Isla Guadalupe (Owen, 2003;
2004). The present work will focus on
H. fulgens turveri, a form that is almost
unknown in collections and whose
(1964) considering it valid, and Geiger
(1998) and Geiger and Poppe (2000)
treating it as a synonym of H. fulgens.
The ssp. occurs at the extreme southern
point in the distribution of H. fulgens on
the Pacific Coast: Magdalena Bay
(Bahia Magdalena) to Punta Conejo,
Lower California, Mexico. Long-term
field observations by biologists and
workers in Mexican commercial abalone
fisheries (Fed. Reg. de. Sociedades
Cooperativas de la Industria Pesquera
Baja California, F.C.L.) demonstrate this
small population of H. fulgens as being
isolated from contact with the closest
population further north (at Punta
Abreojos) by >200 km (F. Fonseca; A.
Serrano, pers. comm.)
MATERIAL AND METHODS
Abbreviations of Collections: BOC:
Buzz Owen Collection.
MATERIAL EXAMINED:
1) Haliotis fulgens turveri
The earliest material examined
for this study consisted of approximately
220 specimens obtained from a number
of sources between 1954 and 1959. An
additional group of approximately 125
specimens were retrieved in 1995-1996
from small curio stores in Cabo San
Lucas, at the southern tip of Lower
California, Mexico. Finally, in 1999,
approximately 650 specimens were
obtained from the small commercial
fishery at Santa Margarita Island at the
south end of Magdalena Bay. These
latter specimens were obtained by Abel
Serrano, a Mexican fisheries biologist,
packed in heavy burlap bags tied closed
with sisal twine, and brought directly to
Ensenada from Magdalena Bay.
2) Haliotis fulgens fulgens.
Several hundred thousand
specimens of the nominate race have
been examined between 1949 and 2003.
These specimens represent populations
found between Punta Abreojos, Lower
California, Mexico, and Santa Rosa
Island, California.
3) Haliotis fulgens guadalupensis.
Approximately 1500 specimens
of this ssp., which is endemic to
Guadalupe Is., Lower California,
Mexico, have been studied between
1964 and 2003. The locality data for all
specimens of both H. fulgens turveri and
H. fulgens guadalupensis is very
accurate, as is a large percentage of the
H. fulgens fulgens included in this study.
Shell specimens used for the
photo plates were selected to show
excellent details of sculpture, and then
cleaned with a hand wire brush and an
X-Acto knife. Photography was
accomplished with a Canon A70 digital
camera, and the resultant images
processed with an iMac computer using
Adobe Photoshop version 8.
RESULTS
As this extremely large amount
of material from Magdalena Bay was
being examined to select specimens that
exhibited good detail for photography, a
number of differences in shell
morphology became apparent when
comparisons were made to specimens of
H. fulgens fulgens and H. fulgens
guadalupensis:
1) The very strong, deep, and often
extremely wide, spiral ribbing of the
Magdalena Bay shells was perhaps most
noticeable. Typical specimens of H. f.
fulgens and H. fulgens guadalupensis
have narrower ribbing which is not as
deep or pronounced.
2) The shells of H. fulgens turveri
tend to be thinner, with the spiral ribbing
being very pronounced when viewed
from the ventral side.
3) Frequently, younger specimens
of H. fulgens turveri exhibit a highly
silvered, nacreous interior compared to
H. f. fulgens and H. fulgens
guadalupensis, Also, in H. fulgens
turveri, the muscle scar often doesn’t
begin until the shell is much more
mature.
4) In fairly mature specimens of H.
fulgens turveri, the muscle scar often
tends to have more “clumping” of
patchy, nacreous material, than the more
“flowing” linear pattern found in the
area of attachment of the other two ssp.
(Plates 1 and 2).
These differences become more
apparent in direct proportion to the size
of the study group being examined.
When over 500 specimens of each of the
three ssp. are available for study, the
differences in the isolated Magdalena
Bay population become very clear and
obvious.
DISCUSSION
The examination of this large
amount of material took place over a
period of >40 years, with the differences
in the extreme southern population
becoming more convincing and distinct
as time passed and greater amounts of
material became available for study. Of
particular interest were the comparisons
made between the Santa Margarita
Island/Magdalena Bay (H. fulgens
turveri) population and the large number
of H. f. fulgens taken at Punta Abreojos,
the first point to the north of Magdalena
Bay where Haliotis reappear (after a gap
in distribution of >200 km). The Punta
Abreojos specimens are easily separated
from the Magdalena Bay shells, and are
as different as populations found much
further north (i.e. Bahia Tortugas and
Cedros Island, Lower California).
Careful study of these mainland and
near-shore coastal islands populations,
(not including Guadalupe Island),
suggests they differ greater
morphologically from H. fulgens turveri
than they do from H. fulgens
guadalupensis. Stated differently, H.
fulgens turveri is the most different in
shell morphology of the three ssp. The
isolation of this small population near
the southern tip of Lower California,
Mexico, plus its very different shell
morphology from populations existing
further north, strongly support the
validation of this subspecies. A final
thought: As a point of interest,
conversations with Mexican fisheries
officials and commercial abalone divers
extremely familiar with the distribution
of West Coast Haliotis species in Lower
California, Mexico, have revealed that
the furthest south Haliotis occur in North
America is the very tiny population of H.
fulgens turveri that exists at Punta
Conejo, a miniscule point of rock about
80 km south of the southern extreme
point of Magdalena Bay. A specimen
from this population is illustrated (Plate
1A: from Biol. Francisco Fonseca). The
spiral ribbing on this specimen is
extremely strong and deep, though not
particularly wide. It has the highly
silvered, interior nacre common to the
ssp., and the odd, rather pronounced
semi-translucent “orange” dorsal color
peculiar to occasional specimens of H.
fulgens turveri - not to be confused with
a more brownish-orange, NON-
translucent color found in some
specimens of the other two ssp.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I would like to thank David
Leighton, Stephen Browning, and Tom
Grace, for reviewing the manuscript and
offering useful comments and
suggestions. I also wish to thank
Francisco Fonseca and Abel Pérez
Serrano for their invaluable help in
obtaining specimens from Magdalena
Bay, and for sharing their knowledge of
extreme southern populations of H.
fulgens with me.
LITERATURE CITED
Bartsch, Paul. 1942. A New Subspecies
of Haliotis (H. fulgens turveri). The
Nautilus 56:57.
Geiger, D. L. 1998. Recent Genera and
Species of the Family Haliotidae
Rafinesque, 1815 (Gastropoda:
Vetigastropoda). The Nautilus
111:85-116.
Geiger, D. L. and G. T. Poppe. 2000.
Family Haliotidae. In: Poppe, G.T.
and Groh, K. (Eds). A Conchological
Iconography. Conchbooks,
Hackenheim, Germany. 135pp,
83pls.
Owen, Buzz 2003. The Haliotis
Subspecies Endemic to Guadalupe
Island, Lower California, Mexico: A
Re-examination and Photo Study –
Part 1: Haliotis corrugata oweni
Talmadge, 1966. Of Sea and Shore.
25:4:272-275, 288; 2 pl.
Owen, Buzz. 2004. The Haliotis
Subspecies Endemic to Guadalupe
Island, Lower California, Mexico: A
Re-examination and Photo Study –
Part 2: Haliotis cracherodii
californiensis Swainson, 1822. Of
Sea and Shore. 26:1:70-75; 3 pl.
Talmadge, R. R. 1964. The Races of
Haliotis fulgens Philippi (Mollusca:
Gastropoda) Transactions of the San
Diego Society of Natural History.
Vol. 13, No. 18, pp. 369-376.
Talmadge, R. R. 1966. A New Haliotid
from Guadalupe Island, Mexico
(Mollusca:Gastropoda). Los Angeles
County Museum Contributions in
Science No. 9: 5 pp., 2 Fig.