Atlantic Mud Piddock

Atlantic Mud Piddock

We used to find lots of ATLANTIC MUD PIDDOCKS on the flats of North Captiva and Cayo Costa when we boated there regularly but rarely on Sanibel. That’s why I was tickled to find one on the Sanibel Lighthouse beach this weekend. They can get up to 2.75 inches but this one is only 1  1/2 inches.

Atlantic Mud Piddock Aperture

Atlantic Mud Piddock Aperture

This was is a little broken (on the right tip you can see it’s a little jagged) but I’ve always loved these since they are like a special ANGELWING and in the same family… but with “Spock” ears….. hmmmm. both have that …..”ock” too.

Mud piddock on beach

 It was a beautiful evening on the beach with our friends Joe and Manuela.

Joe Manuela

Those cute little Zippy Minis (remember the video? ha!) with the HERMIT CRABS were in full force so they were mesmerized by them…..

Sanibel Crabbing

Joe is not only a really good friend of Clark’s, he’s Clark’s business partner at Rambo & Ginsberg Realty so he has to hear about all those “schmanonia” stories (albeit well deserved stories… I guess) as much as we do. I still sound bitter very envious, don’t I. heehee

clark and joe shelling

They found a few minis like WENTLETRAPS, a MELAMPUS, a wormie, SLIPPER SHELLS, CERITHS, AUGERS, WHELKS and a CONCH. I gave Manuela the APPLE MUREX and the OPERCULUM (which I had to explain that it was the “door” to a WHELK) and they ended up keeping the MUREX but they weren’t too thrilled about the OPERCULUM so gave it back to me. They looked at me like “Why the heck would we want to keep that?” I guess I like the weird stuff too:)

miniature shells and operculum

Right before we were leaving the beach, we saw a small part of a rainbow…..

Sanibel rainbow with boat

This was followed by hundreds upon hundreds of dragonflies. If you can’t see them, click on the picture to enlarge it, then I hope you can see how many there were. Go, dragonflies! Eat those skeeters!

Dragonfly sky