mauve-mouth drill egg case

This is so wild. Attached to a SUNRAY VENUS CLAM, were fresh egg cases that these MAUVE-MOUTH DRILLS just produced!

Calotrophon ostrearum egg case mauve mouth drill

MurexKen found this fascinating nest just after MurexAlice had shown me those cute little MORTON’S EGG COCKLES on yesterdays post (hmmm- the “egg” theme continues, huh?). I was tickled that he called me over to show me this egg case that I’ve never seen before. The babies look like little pods of pollen sitting in a beautiful flower. Mk and MA are quite a pair for finding the unexpected!

live mauve-mouth drill egg case

I’m not quite sure, but I think the shell on the left was still laying some eggs. I hated to disturb them so after taking a few photos, we returned the mollusks and eggs to the water to make sure they produce healthy babies.

sunray venus with mauve-mouth drill egg case

You can see this one’s aperture with just a bit of the “mauve” showing around his body.

live mauve-mouth drill

Oh wait…. just in case you can’t remember what a MAUVE-MOUTH DRILL looks like when you find them empty on the beach, here are a few pictures to refresh your memory…

mauve mouth drill

Now you’ll see why they call it “mauve-mouth”. They have a mauve or purple in the aperture when they are alive or freshly dead.

Mauve mouth drill aperture

Out of all these shells in our collection at home, I could only find one that had a mauve mouth.

mauve-mouth drills Calotrophon ostrearum

I don’t find MAUVE-MOUTH DRILLS that often so to see live ones that are laying eggs was really pretty exceptional. I’m not sure if this would be considered scientifically  “rare” to see this out beach combing, but it was rare for me. Great finds MK and MA!

mauve-mouth drills