Archive for Turrid
Rainbow of Miniature Cones
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Having a hard time finding ALPHABET CONES? Refocus your eyes on the miniature shells where the DUSKY CONES hang out. If you are reaaallly lucky, then you’ll find a juvie ALPHABET CONE mixed in with the DUSKYS. In the photo above, you’ll see five cute little DUSKYS on the left then the tiny juvie APHIE on the right end all nestled rainbow style in the palm of Deseray’s hand. She found all of the CONES! I met Deseray’s grandad Fred, her mom Mary Ann and her just west of Lighthouse Beach this weekend. Three generations of shellers…
I could have talked to them for hours about their exquisite mini finds. Deseray has an exceptional eye in finding tiny gems since she has been shelling all of her life and she knew most of their names right away. The only one that stumped us was the TURRID. I thought it was a TURRID but it looks a little different than most we find so I looked back. Yep… most of ours are Pyrgospira tampaensis and I think Deseray’s is the Zonulispira crocata. So let’s just go with the basic iLoveShelling style and just call the really cool shell in between the KING’S CROWN and the LETTERED OLIVE …. a TURRID!
And yes, she also has a little teeny tiny WENTLETRAP on the bottom too. This is just one of many that she found! Here’s are Mary Ann’s mini finds. She had to put an AUGER in her “fave shells” photo since Deseray has always called them “Unicorn Horns”. That is so cute! It DOES look like a Unicorn’s horn!
Did you see those two fabulous little CRAB shells? I love all of the cool stuff they collect! I hope yall can name all of the other minis they collected but if not, look them up on my SEASHELL IDENTIFICATION page. CLICK HERE!
A Golden Day Boating Around Marco
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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…
Literally! Both John and Clark found GOLDEN OLIVES!
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…
Look at this huuujah ANGEL WING Clark found. It fills my whole hand…
This was the first ALPHABET CONE John found for the day.
These are Jane’s FLORIDA CONES. These are pretty golden too!
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!
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…
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.
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.
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!
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!
TOP SHELLS…
BRUISED NASSAS…
TAMPA TURRIDS…
DUSKY CONES…
and even a cool BRYOZOAN COLONY…
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…
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.
Sparse Dove Shell, A Little Sparse In My Seashell Collection
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I think the east winds blew those PEN SHELLS I talked about tuesday back into the water so the beach was a little sparse yesterday. Speaking of sparse, a few weeks ago I found this SPARSE DOVE shell which is only 3/8 of an inch big. I’m gonna give myself a break by thinking it was a TAMPA TURRID since they both are so tiny. I could not even tell the difference between them until I put my cheater glasses on. How annoying!
I don’t even think I have many in my shell collection… or maybe I need to go through all of my TURRIDS to see if I’ve been mixing them all along. Here’s a tiny TAMPA TURRID (say that 3 times fast). See? I have a hard time even see solids and stripes any more- geez!
I found another tiny shell the other day at Blind Pass which I thought was a DWARF CERITH but I just found out (MK) it’s a WEST INDIAN FALSE CERITH. I think I found the shell because I had just come back from Barefoot Beach looking for small black SHARK’S TEETH. I still had that shark’s teeth “eye” going on because I don’t see these jet black ones very often…
Here’s a better look…
In the next photo, you’ll see a common DARK CERITH that we find on our beaches every day. I think they are so common, I look right over them most of the time so this might be on my “Most common Sanibel shells” list when I make it, Susan H. I’m starting to narrow it down a bit.
PS- Okay, and I have to tell you that Clark (he’s gonna kill me for telling you this) has a nick name for TURRIDS… He calls them “turds”! LOL He’ll say “Hey, I found a turd!”. Boys will be boys hahaha…
Turkey Wings and Rice, a Cone and Candy
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Don’t get your taste buds all worked up about TURKEY, RICE or CANDY because I’m talking seashells, of course! We found lots of mini “morsels” at the lighthouse over the weekend including these two TURKEY WINGS (the biggest one is only about an inch long) and two TAMPA TURRIDS in the photo above and RICE OLIVES and BABY’S EARS in this next photo.
Along with the usual ANGULATE WENTLETRAPS, I found a BROWN BANDED WENTLETRAP too….
…. And some AUGERS and little FIGHTING CONCHS.
And to top it all off with some sweet candy, we found two HORSE CONCHS and baby ALPHABET CONE.
I met William and Melissa (Jacksonville, FL) filling their shells bags with SCALLOP shells, CONCHS and some MUREXES.
I found out this was their first trip to Sanibel so I showed them how to find WENTLETRAPS too..
I met another Shelling Sister Sanibel Stooper on the beach too…. this little cutie Lucy! She was having a ball with this COCKLE shell on the beach with her parents Jeff and Tammy.
And look what I found again…. a SMOOTH DUCK CLAM. Maybe it isn’t that unusual (?)
Unfortunately, it’s so thin and fragile, it broke when I got it back to the house……oops!
There were so many SAILOR’S EARS, I bunched a few together and that’s when I saw the SMOOTH DUCK CLAM too.
Sailors ears
Just a reminder- If you haven’t entered the Susick Sea Shell Sifter Giveaway yet, CLICK HERE to win!
Low Tide Sanibel Skies
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Breathtaking. This is what I love about low tide shelling on the evenings of spring and summer. The reflections from the backdrop of dramatic skies on the shallow water from the receding tide is magnificent.
This is where colors can change in an instant with a splash of yellow or pink.
It gets even better to mix in a few seashells and….
My favorite addition to any beautiful sky background would be …… Shelling Sistahs!!! Jean, Anna and Linda drove down from Ohio to spend time relaxing on Sanibel and to hunt for WENTLETRAPS. Okay, maybe not just wentles…. any and every beach treasure they can find!
We all found plenty of minis in the surf just about the same way as I showed in my video yesterday (Seashells In The Surf).
Darcy and Mary (MN) were finding a few nice FIGHTING CONCHS and a nice size APPLE MUREX.
I saw a very cool live LETTERED OLIVE making a curly q track in the wet sand…
I got a little closer look at the OLIVE to see its siphon pop out. When an OLIVE buries itself, it uses the siphon as sort of a snorkel. I’m so good with technical terms aren’t I? Ha! NOT!
Wow, take a look at this…..
We always love to see live, healthy shells and hope they breed, breed, breed more beauties. But we also like to see empty ones…..
I found a TURRID shell on Sunday night that I posted in the first picture yesterday but I didn’t name it because I tried to take a close up photo but it just didn’t show properly. Low and behold, I found another one last night (the one on the left) so I can show you what a TURRID shell looks like.
Super Sheller Clark and I started making our way back to the parking lot…..
to find (you’re gonna love this!) Linda, Anna and Jean’s car driven all the way from Ohio…..
