Archive for Tulip Egg Case
On the Beach With Shell Eggs And Ham, Pam-I-Am
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After strong west winds last week, surely we would get some interesting shells and Beach Bling washing up on our shores of Sanibel and Captiva. Yep, lots of Beach Bling lined the beach at Gulfside City Park.
The winds were so strong, the strength of the waves pushed oodles of crab traps with buoys onto the beach. When traps get tossed around by the power of the water, their doors get jostled then spill out the bait for the crabs.
So of course, the bait gets washed up on the beach too. Pigs Feet! Yes, they use PIGS FEET to attract STONE CRABS and BLUE CRABS so that’s why you may have seen odd bones washed up on the beach- most of the time its from crab traps. I actually think this one may be a HOGS FOOT. Its weird and humongo! On the beach, I do not like pigs feet or ham, Pam I am.
But don’t let this PIGS FOOT be confused with this SEA PORK. More ham, Pam I am?
I also found lots of different MOLLUSK EGG CASINGS too like this LIGHTNING WHELK EGG CHAIN…
I saw there were little baby shells in their fluid still sealed in each of the disks so I put it back in the water. I’m sure they washed back up on the beach since the water was still pretty rough but … who knows. Maybe they got stuck on something out there in the water and were able to hatch. Dunno, but why not try?
This one is an EGG CASE to a PAPER FIG…
This is a BANDED TULIP…
This beauty is a TRUE TULIP EGG CASE…
When Clark and I looked a little closer, we saw there were several other EGG CASES that were laid on some of the TRUE TULIP EGG CAPSULES.
There were lots of MILLIPEDE STARFISH (and PEN SHELLS)…
This was a very cool LONG SPINED SEA URCHIN…
There were hundreds of DOSINIAS that were washed up on the beach as well. I was really thrilled to find both types of our local DOSINIAS scattered along the wrack lines. The top one is the very common DISK DOSINIA and the bottom one is the ELEGANT DOSINIA. I haven’t had time to photograph them but I hope to show the detail much better on my next post.
We searched Blind Pass (both sides) and Lighthouse but didn’t find huge piles of shells this weekend after the high winds but loved finding all of this cool bling at Gulfside City Park. I’m still hoping the shell piles will come rolling in soon but the birds are happy as clams with so much gourmet food at their beaks.
The birds do like stone crab and clams.
They like them here and there. They like them everywhere.
They do so like stone crabs and clams. Go Birds. Go Birds. Pam-I-am.
CyberShelling At Lighthouse Beach
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Someone asked me the other day “How can you tell if the eggs are dead or alive in a (MOLLUSK) EGG CASING?”. I had posted a photo of little tiny shells in the capsule of a LIGHTNING WHELK EGG CASE on my post Beach Bling Babes when the question came up. The whole EGG CHAIN I had shown was completely dried and pretty crumbly so it was safe to say that there were no living baby MOLLUSKS in there. So when I picked up a few TRUE TULIP EGG CASES this morning at the Sanibel Lighthouse Beach and saw that they may still be alive, I wanted to show you the difference. Since I’m no scientist, I can’t tell you these little TRUE TULIP EGGS were definitely alive, but they sure looked like they could still be viable to me since they were still encased in their fluid capsules.
I also looked at the little hole in the top of the capsule and saw that it was still plugged. After about a month, when the babies are ready to come out, the pore opens up (that I’m showing in the photo above) and the young will creep out. So my theory is, if I don’t know something is dead, I have to assume it’s still alive. So I put the EGG CLUSTERS back in the water to maybe have a chance of surviving. You can see it much more clearly in this video…. 
YEEWWW HOOOO, CYBERSHELLERS! I have something different today. I bent down to pick up a BUTTON SHELL, then saw several fun mini goodies so I thought you might enjoy seeing them too. Click on the next photo to enlarge. Have fun!
PS- Come shelling with me! Here’s how…
Merry Holiday Beach Art
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Merry Christmas, SS Marcia! In my last post, Marcia asked me if I had seen beach art yet. I had to laugh when the first thing I saw when I walked on the beach was this Christmas tree made with PEN SHELLS. Then right beside it was this beautiful menorah! This is the first that I’ve seen this season so thank you to the beach art artist who made these!
There was so much Beach Bling in between Donax Rd and Fulgur Rd on Sanibel.
This was one of several TULIP EGG CASES I saw…
I didn’t even see the second KEYHOLE LIMPET on the left when I took this photo. I was so amazed at the dark stripes on the big LIMPET and the colors on the tiny APPLE MUREX and BANDED TULIP.
In one little area, the high tide was bringing in shells to build up this nice pile. See that gorgeous LIGHTNING WHELK?
Maybe the golden rays of this Sanibel sunset shining on the amber edges of the ROUGH PENS will inspire the richly talented artists who create their beach art masterpieces for we mere beachcombers to fill our hearts with joy for the holidays. Ahem…. did I ask that nicely enough for more fun holiday beach art stuff? 
