Auckland Shell Club

The Auckland Shell Club, also known as the Conchology Section of the Auckland Museum Institute, is a New Zealand society concerned with the study of molluscs and their shells.

Auckland Shell Club
Formation1931
TypeLearned society, Nonprofit
Location
FieldConchology, Malacology
Websitewww.aucklandshellclub.net.nz

History

The club first formed in 1931,[1] as the Conchology Section of the Auckland Institute and Museum.[2] Sections are special interest groups or organisations housed within Auckland War Memorial Museum, and the Shell Club is the oldest.[3] It is one of only three shell clubs in New Zealand.[4]

The first facilitator of the club was Baden Powell.[5] Powell held weekly after-school meetings and several Auckland schoolboys attended. Powell led field trips to Hauraki Gulf islands and Mon Desir Reef in Takapuna to search for molluscs, and conducted a harbour survey, dredging the bottom of Auckland Harbour; club members would sort these dredge samples and sand for tiny shells. Charles Fleming, Peter Bull, and Richard Dell were all members of the club as teenagers. Bull went onto become an ornithologist and ecologist, Dell Curator of Molluscs at the Dominion Museum, and Fleming became a palaeontologist studying palaeobiogeography and stratigraphy.[6] Through the Shell Club, Charles Fleming was able to meet Robert Falla and the Museum's director Gilbert Archey, both important to his later scientific career. Powell took Fleming, then aged just 14, with him to Wanganui Museum to see the Pliocene type specimens in Henry Suter's collection, and in 1933 the teenage naturalist accompanied Powell's expedition to the Chatham Islands.[7]

The second facilitator of the club was Czech malacologist Walter Olivier Cernohorsky.[5]

The club used to meet in a dedicated area of the Auckland War Memorial Museum's Malacology Department, where the club's library was also kept.[5] The jubilee celebrations of the Conchology Club was held in October 1980, with a dinner at the Mon Desir Hotel and a field trip to Whangaparaoa Peninsula.[7]

From 1962 to 2014, the shell club published Poirieria, a journal available at the Biodiversity Heritage Library.[8]

The Auckland Shell Club takes part in the New Zealand Shell Show, an event that occurs every two years, alternatively held in Auckland and Wellington.[9][10]

Current and former members

References
  1. Abadia, Karina (1 May 2013). "Shells are a passion". Stuff. Retrieved 24 November 2022.
  2. Beu, Alan; Marshall, Bruce; Ponder, Winston (2003). "Richard Kenneth ('Dick') Dell, 1920–2002: obituary, bibliography and a list of his taxa". Molluscan Research. 23: 85–99.
  3. "Sections". Auckland War Memorial Museum. Retrieved 24 November 2022.
  4. Wassilieff, Maggy (12 June 2006). "Shellfish - Shell collecting". Te Ara: The Encyclopedia of New Zealand. Retrieved 24 November 2022.
  5. Thwaites, I. G.; Gill, B. J.; Blom, W. (2015). "Walter Oliver Cernohorsky F.L.S. Surveyor, malacologist – 1927–2014". Records of the Auckland Museum. 50: 85–27. ISSN 1174-9202. JSTOR 90014737. Wikidata Q58628995.
  6. Beechey, Des (December 2005). "Dr Bill Rudman and Dr Winston Ponder retire" (PDF). Australasian Shell News. Malacological Society of Australasia. 127. Retrieved 24 November 2022.
  7. Mary McEwen (2005). Charles Fleming: Environmental Patriot. Nelson: Potton & Burton. ISBN 1-877333-23-9. OL 12108137M. Wikidata Q115763336.
  8. Crowley, Bianca (22 October 2015). "From Scarborough to Svjatoj Nos: BHL's latest in-copyright additions". Biodiversity Heritage Library. Retrieved 24 November 2022.
  9. Mulligan, Jesse. "She seeks sea shells". Radio New Zealand. Retrieved 24 November 2022.
  10. Cawley, Rose (1 May 2013). "Shells on show". Stuff. Retrieved 24 November 2022.
  11. "Newsletter - September 2013". Auckland Shell Club. Retrieved 25 November 2022.
  12. Blom, Wilma M. (2017). "Fossil and Recent molluscan types in the Auckland Museum Part 2: Polyplacophora and Scaphopoda". Records of the Auckland Museum. 52: 71–76. ISSN 1174-9202. JSTOR 90016663. Wikidata Q104815052.
  13. "Newsletter - November 2003". Auckland Shell Club. Retrieved 25 November 2022.
  14. Bozetti, L; Sargent, Dennis M (2011). "A new species of Euprotomus (Gastropoda: Strombidae) from New Zealand and the Kermadec Islands". Visaya. 3 (3): 23–27.


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