Archive for Peanut Worm
Sea Potato Heart Urchins
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Circle of Sanibel Beached Palm
Along with seashells and sealife, palm trees are even washing up on the beaches of Sanibel and Captiva.
Beached Palm Circle
I heard from blog friend Marcy that there were hundreds of SEA BISCUITS washing up on the east end of Sanibel. What? I’ve never seen SEA BISCUITS (they look like fat and puffy SAND DOLLARS) on this coast before, only in the upper Florida Keys. I ran down there and found these….
Potato or Heart Urchins
Tons of HEART URCHINS! This looks like a bunch of potatoes that just spilled out of a sack, right? That’s why they are also called SEA POTATOES. I’ve never seen so many HEART URCHINS washed up like this… or SEA URCHINS.
Purple Sea Urchin piled on beach
Hundreds of Purple Sea Urchins
I took this next picture because there were so many unusual sea critters all together in one place.
Beach critters
Let’s start with that huge STONE CRAB claw that’s laying on a PARCHMENT WORM, then clockwise is a PEANUT WORM (in the middle of the picture), a HEART URCHIN, HORSESHOE CRAB, a couple of SEA SPONGES, a PEN SHELL then the black blob is SEA PORK (not an oil tar ball!!!)
Sanibel Beachcombing
Who knows what tomorrow will bring.
Sunset on seashells
What is it ?????
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Peanut Worm
Peanut Worm in shallow water
Clark and I boated out to North Captiva and Cayo Costa today and found this flopping around in the shallow water. What the heck is it? I was thinking it was a live ANGEL WING that had peeped out from it’s shell below but it’s a PEANUT WORM. We found lots of SUNRAY VENUS CLAMS so maybe that’s what the live mollusk looks like when he peeks out of his shell from below the surface. I didn’t dig it up (Yikes!) to find out so I’d love feedback, if anybody knows what it is (as “clean” as possible, please- haha!).
6" Sunray venus
It’s a monster! This was the biggest SUNRAY VENUS that we found today. I didn’t get a chance to clean it before I took this picture but most of that crud will come right off so it should be really pretty.
Brown baby's ears mixed with our other finds
We were very happy to find MACULATED BABY’S EARS today too. These are the brown ones that aren’t as common and have brown smears on them. The one to the right of the WENTLETRAP has spots on it. Also pictured….3 FALSE ANGEL WINGS, 2 RICE OLIVES, a BUBBLE, PEAR WHELK, and a baby LIGHTNING WHELK.
We didn’t find much by the tree roots on the south tip of Cayo Costa but we were still happy with our treasures we picked up on the way there.
"Turtle Shells"
Post Update 4/6/10……..Bailey-Matthews Shell Museum director Jose H. Leal identified the top picture as a sipunculid, also known as a PEANUT WORM. That’s a new one for me. So there was no shell underneath. Weird, huh?
