Archive for Dusky Cone

Oct
10

A Golden Day Boating Around Marco

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john and the dingy

Our friends John and Jane strapped a Zodiac dinghy to the top of their car on Saturday and invited us to join them for a boating adventure down to Marco Island. Yes! We are always ready for a shelling expedition.

The whole day was golden…

Jane shelling marco

Literally! Both John and Clark found GOLDEN OLIVES!

Golden Olive Marco

Golden Olive aperture

When we all got back to the boat, everybody was showing off their best finds and both guys held out their hands holding the GOLDEN OLIVES…

two golden olive seashells

Look at this huuujah ANGEL WING Clark found. It fills my whole hand…

Angel wing huge

This was the first ALPHABET CONE John found for the day.

John alphabet cone marco

These are Jane’s FLORIDA CONES. These are pretty golden too!

florida cones marco jane

Here are the rest of her best finds. Yes! She found a JUNONIA! It’s broken on one side but it’s still a JUNONIA and it might be a good candidate for making a necklace. Congrats Jane!

Janes finds

We boated over to another island (Kice) where I was taking a photo of a nice 10 inch old crusty HORSE CONCH I found on the low tide sand bar…

crusty conch shell marco

I heard Clark yell and start waving his arms. Oh no, he di-ant! Another one? He couldn’t have found another you-know-what. I looked to see how far away he was since I was way out on the sand bar. See that little speck? That’s how far he was from me.

Clark on the beach Marco

Okay,..you might want to avert your eyes if you’ve had a bad day or just can’t stand the thought of Clark finding yet another J….. uh…. I can’t even say it. To show me where he found it, he had it sitting right where it was when he walked up. Here… see for yourself.

junonia on th shore marco

Really? How come I didn’t look there first? The man is a shell magnet. Here is a close up of his nearly perfect JUNONIA (just the tip is missing). I want to find one! Not that I’m jealous…. oh, geez. Of course I’m jealous! Oh I’m happy for Jane and “him” too…. I guess. ;) It even has a golden color to it too!

junonia close up

You know I’m just kidding about being upset I didn’t find the big J. How could I when I found so many beautiful shells on such an awesome day? Here are some of our other golden treasures…like candy!

horsie conchs in angel wing

TOP SHELLS…

Top Shells Marco

BRUISED NASSAS…

Bruised Nassa seashells

TAMPA TURRIDS…

Tampa Turrids

FALSE ANGEL WINGS

False Angel Wings

DUSKY CONES…

Dusky Cones Marco

and even a cool BRYOZOAN COLONY…

Tubular Horn Bryozoan Ectoprocta

It took us less than 1  1/2 hours drive time to get to our island hopping adventure in Marco aboard “our” little dinghy. Here’s the happy crew…

Marco dingy crew

 

PS-  I popped off some of those crusty barnacles to uncover the shell of that HORSE CONCH I found out the sand bar. It’s beautiful! I found a home for it on my outside steps as a happy welcome to our Shell Shack.

10 inch fighting conch on step

 

 

May
10

Seashells Open Your Eyes

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Marginella Aperture

The other day, shelling sistah Tricia G asked me if I’ve ever found a MARGINELLA on Sanibel since I don’t have one listed on the SEASHELL IDENTIFICATION page. I’ve found them before but, come to think about it, I sure haven’t found one in a long time. So last night, we headed for the lighthouse because I was on the hunt for that sneaky MARGINELLA. To double my chances, I reminded Super Sheller Clark that I wanted to find one to add to the I.D. page so I told him to be on the lookout too.

Marginella

Marginella

Yippee! I found one!….. er…..well…. Clark found it. He was scooping at the surf line when all the sudden I hear him laugh. “Look what I found”.

Marginellas dove

Marginellas and a broken dove

Then he found another one! And then yes, I found that little one on the right. Whew- I wasn’t completely out-shelled. Keep in mind, the biggest one is just shy of 1/2 inch and they sort of look like a BUBBLE if the aperture side is down so they aren’t easy to find. I found the broken one on the left too so I added it to the photo since I thought it was the same shell.

Marginella dove aperture

Marginella and Dove? aperture

Dang it! That shell on the left really doesn’t even look like a MARGINELLA at all since it has those teeth on the lip. I couldn’t even see those teeth until I took the picture and looked at it on the computer. In the last few years I can’t even look at my phone or a menu without holding them as far as my arms will extend. You know what I mean? Ha! Geez. Oh well, I’ve been fortunate so far with my eyes so I shouldn’t complain….. it’s just weird…. I’m just sayin. ;) Alright, back to the shell…. I think the broken shell on the far left is a DOVE shell just by what’s left of it but I could be wrong (I gotta get back to trusting my own eyes again- yikes!). It’s not like I can where “readers” on the beach…. maybe? ….. nahhhh.

Brown banded wentletrap

Brown banded wentletrap

I didn’t need glasses to spot this BROWN-BAND WENTLETRAP though. Love that color running through it!

Brown banded wentletrap aperture

Brown banded wentletrap aperture

Nancy from Seashell Wreaths by Nancy reminded me that the name WENTLETRAP is derived from a Dutch word meaning spiral staircase.

Wentletrap staircase

Wentletrap staircases

We were on the mini shell hunt so we ran across lots of the BUBBLE shells…. appropriately named as well….

Bubble shells

Bubble shells

We found lots of AUGERS which again, look like their name…

Augers

Augers

So how about SHARP-RIB DRILL? That flat rib or blade off the sides is pretty sharp, huh?

Sharp-rib Drills on aqua

Sharp-rib Drills

Now this is getting funny! I didn’t plan on dissecting common names of shells tonight but it’s kind of fun, right? So let’s look at the KEYHOLE LIMPET…..

keyhole limpet shell

Keyhole Limpet

….and the BUTTON shell….

Button shell

Button shell

This CONE shell certainly looks like an ice cream cone….

Dusky Cone

Dusky Cone

But I’m not sure that this RICE OLIVE shell looks like an olive but it sure looks like rice…

rice olive shell

Rice Olive

Picture this next shell on top of Barbie’s doll head… yep, it’s a TURBAN. Again, I just thought this shell was pretty and knobby. I didn’t realize it had a hole in it and the barnacles attached…the eyes are going! Oh well, it’s still pretty.

Turban shell

Chestnut Turban

We had our eyes (failing or not) focused on finding a special miniature shell by looking for the particular pattern of a MARGINELLA and we found it. We shell this beach on the east end of Sanibel regularly but we’ve probably walked right by hundreds of them just because we have been focused on other patterns of shells that we see on a regular basis. i Love Shelling. I really do because it opens my eyes to see beautiful things that I normally would never appreciate.

Sanibel lighthouse shells

Our Sanibel lighthouse shells last night

 

snowy egret

Snowy Egret

Sanibel pier sunset

Sanibel pier sunset

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Apr
23

Easter Colors Sanibel Style

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Easter Seashells

Everywhere I looked last night, I saw the colors of Easter… in seashells.

Easter Sanibel sky…..and in the sky

Easter coconuts…..and around the palm trees.

sister shell seekers

As we “hopped” around to the lighthouse beach filling up our Easter shell basket, I ran into sisters Carol and Gail finding goodies for their basket (errr, shell bag ;) ).

Carol Sanibel shells

It was their last night on Sanibel and Carol finally found her first WENTLETRAP at the lighthouse beach. Yippee! Congrats!

Lace Murex in sand

I found sweet little LACE MUREX.

Dusky cone on sea pork

And I found this cute little DUSKY CONE on a piece of SEA PORK. It looks like an Easter egg broke and the yoke spilled everywhere, doesn’t it?

Aimee fighting conchs

Then we hopped on over to the beach off Middle Gulf Dr. and met Aimee (too shy to have her picture taken) where she found three of these FIGHTING CONCHS so I added the one furthest down in her palm. Look at how cool it is since it has a “freak” growth pattern.

banded tulip Sanibel shell

Even the BANDED TULIPS had a hint of pink for Easter.

paper fig seashell beach

Happy Easter! Good wishes for you all to shellebrate the day.

Pastel sky

Sep
14

Many Mini Sea Shells

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Juvenile horse conchs

Candy! I love my candy corn. We found 16 baby horsies at the lighthouse. There’s one little cutie murex in the picture too. See it?

Wentletraps

Clark and I found over 200 WENTLETRAPS and he found one BROWN-BAND WENTLETRAP. Once we found one, all of the others just showed up. It’s all about the eye. I took some video to show you how far from the beach we were and what they were near . I’ll try to get that together for you this week.

Minis!

We found 9 little DUSKY CONES, 2 cutie MARGINELLAS (oops! UPDATE 9-19-10: These are NOT marginellas. They are MELAMPUS shells. Thank you MurexKen. Please see post My Goodness Melampus) and a BABYS EAR.

So many minis!

There are so many different miniature shells in this photo! Can you recognize a few?

Aug
12

I See Seashells

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Seashells!

I had Blind Pass shelling envy yesterday so I made sure I made it this morning. I wasn’t disappointed! Look at those lovely seashells piling up. Ahhhhh. Oh yea, I kept this photo large so that for all of you virtual shellers, you can click on the picture to enlarge it to see some of the lovelies.

Virtual shelling

Guess who was on the beach again? Rachael, Eddy and their dad Ed!

Eddy, Rachael and Ed (CT)

There were all of these shells coming in and they were the only other people shelling there at Blind Pass this morning. Wow!

Rachael's Dusky Cone

I had a discussion on a previous post, Mixed Shell Bag , about the name of this little cone shell. Mine was a different color but I learned they are both DUSKY CONES. So when Rachael asked me the name of her shell, I was happy to be able to name it.

Eddy's cone, nutmeg and tulip

Eddy found the FLORIDA CONE, NUTMEG and BANDED TULIP this morning.

My purple scallop shell

I hope this weekend is just as good…..or even better.

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May
11

Mixed Shell Bag

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Dusky cone North Captiva

Clark and I boated to North Captiva on Sunday and we found a few fun things. I love the color and size of this DUSKY CONE and we also found 2 KING’S CROWN, a bunch of FARGO WORM SHELLS (Yay!) and a couple of SAND DOLLARS.

Worm shell, king's crown, sand dollar

After we hung out for hours on North Cap, we couldn’t help stopping by Cayo Costa to see if we could pick up some BABY’S EARS. We have an eye for ears, baby! I found an even bigger on than I found on my “camping” trip 2 weeks ago. This one is about 1 1/2 inches big! That’s a biggie.

Big baby's ear

Speaking of baby’s ears, Clark and I went to the lighthouse beach this evening on the pier side to see what we could find. We found a few WENTLETRAPS and right when we saw a few baby’s ears (in that weed line in the picture below), we met the nicest couple who live in Sanibel as well. Leslie is an artist and shell crafter! She exhibited a few pieces in the Sanibel Shell Fair and Show this year and has been doing so for years. Maybe she’ll use some of those wentletraps and baby’s ears that we found on the beach together in one of her next projects.

Leslie and Joe (Sanibel)