Archive for whelk egg casing
Breaking The Case of Lightning Whelk Eggs
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I wasn’t able to enjoy the shelling while the super moon tides were at the lowest this weekend since I was tied up with other “stuff”. But high on the wrack line there are still so many LIGHTNING WHELK EGG CASES on the east end beaches of Sanibel.
Since I’ve been dissecting some of the BEACH BLING I’ve found over the last week (like the SEA WHIPS), I decided to go ahead and open up one of the dried out LIGHTNING WHELK EGG “disks”.
There are teeny tiny little LIGHTNING WHELK shells in some of the disks.
Isn’t that just a wonder? Talk about miniatures!
I didn’t find that many discs with baby WHELKS in them in this case because it looks like most of them “hatched” already. You can see a little round hole on top side of the discs… this is escape hatch! They use this when they are ready to explore their brave new world.
Just to show you how teeny tiny the WHELKS I popped out of the case were, I’ve added one of these little juvies in this Wheel of Whelks surrounding a penny.
PS-Since we didn’t get to shell the super moon tides, I thought I’d show you what Donnie and his girls found…. a GOLDEN OLIVE!
photo by Donnie Benton
He also sent a photo of all his goodies. Dang! I hate that I missed it.
photo by Donnie Benton
PSS- I’ve been on a researching binge lately so now I’ve broken another Sanibel mystery case wide open… stay tuned!
Sanibel Seashell Egg Casings
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It makes me so happy when Sanibel low tides are in the evenings. It’s my favorite time of day to walk the beach so low tide is such a bonus.
Finding this ALPHABET CONE was a double bonus! I found it right before dusk on the ledge of this little tidal pool near Donax Street beach access….
There were lots of PEN SHELLS, COCKLES, DOSINIAS and live seashells.
I met a first time sheller with all of these (unknowingly) live STARFISH in her bucket. She couldn’t believe she they were still alive since they felt stiff but was very happy to now know to put all SEA STARS back unless they are completely dry. We put them back in the water where they did a little happy dance and started crawling away.
There were so many EGG CASINGS strung all along the shore line.
Here’s a HORSE CONCH EGG CASING…
This is a WHELK EGG CASING…
I even found a SKATE EGG CASE….
An ANGEL WING! Clark found it completely in tact floating in the surf.
Jim (MO) found an old, pitted LIGHTNING WHELK full of character.
Sharon (GA) was collecting sea debris of SPONGES, a CRAB SHELL and a SEA URCHIN but she didn’t have a shell bag. She only had her aqua blue flip flops to carry them on. The perfect back drop!
Talk about a perfect back drop….. My Shelling Sistahs Linda, Anna and Jean in their cute tees with the full moon! This was monday night at the lighthouse where we were still finding lots of minis but not many bigger shells.
I was mesmerized by shellcrafter Jean’s orange bucket swinging against the reflection in the sand of the blue and pink splashed sky.
We went to the lighthouse again tonight but I haven’t loaded my photos yet but I gotta tell you, we found some nice shells. Double SUNRAY VENUS CLAMS, PAPER FIGS, CONCHS and much more…. photos and a video to come!
Sanibel Stoop
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Sanibel Stoop
Candy corn (baby horse conch)
There was lots of Sanibel stooping going on at West Gulf Drive around Casa Ybel Resort. We have some shell piles back and there some good shell to find in there. I found myself some candy corn. I could just eat up those little bright orange HORSE CONCHS! They are just the cutest. I saw the other day, that Tink from MyMobileAdventures calls them mac and cheese. Pretty yummy too!
More Sanibel stooping
Whelk egg casings
I could not believe how many WHELK EGG CASINGS there were on the beach. Every 5 steps there was another one…then another one….then another one. I’m not sure if that is bad news for WHELKS or just good news for good shelling in the next few days. Let’s hope for good shelling!
Feeding Frenzy
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King's Crown ate a crab
This KING’S CROWN had a feast for lunch! Do you think he ate the claw too? I’m sure he did! He already ate the rest of the shell (?). These are the rest of the pictures from Easter but I was way too excited to blog about anything else but my big find of the 12″ WHELK. Sorry, you’ll probably get sick of me talking about that 12″ WHELK (heehee) so I’ll try to keep focused…..because these pictures are really cool!
Horse Conch seashell eats Lighning whelk
Isn’t this wild??? We saw many live shells that were eating other seashell species. They are so powerful that they just suck that other mullosk right out of their shell.
Horse Conch seashell lunches on whelk
This is how shallow the water was that he was found (and released) with his lunch.
Horse conch and king's crown
When you look into the shallow rippling water, some times you can’t really decipher what it is that you are about to pick up. Clark picked up this HORSE CONCH and this KING’S CROWN came with him. The HORSE CONCH had just sucked out the KING’S CROWN mullosk and spit the empty shell into Clark’s hand. Unbelievable.
Whelk egg casing in shallow water
I hope you can see what’s in this picture. It’s a very long and winding WHELK EGG CASING that looks like something from outer space. It looked like one end of this was dug into the sand. I’ve never seen a WHELK “birth” one of these casing so I’m not sure if they (she?) are under the sand when they do it or not. I wasn’t about to tug on it to find out. Remember, I’m far from a scientist and I don’t even play one on TV. 
Bright orange Horse conch
We ended up bringing home 13 KING’S CROWNS, a bunch of WORM SHELLS, a bright orange HORSE CONCH and of course, A TWELVE INCH WHELK.
