N OLIVE SHELL, GREAT BARRIER REEF
This Oliva bulbosa is more inflated or bulbous than most olives. With a glossy sheen and a great variety of abstract patterns, ribbons, curves and tent shapes, olives are especially attractive.
We are not the first to see a letter in an olive. In the
mid-1700s conchologist Dezallier d'Argenville claimed that he could make out three Roman letters on a Pacific specimen of Oliva sayana, shell, called "the Lettered Olive" for its varied design.