carly junonia

Carly found her first JUNONIA! Carly is a friend who grew up on Sanibel, married a handsome boat Captain, just had her first baby (Oliver) and just found her first JUNONIA. It’s a fairy tale come true! LOL She found her treasure (the JUNONIA ;)) while fishing and shelling the out islands on her husband Jeremy’s boat. Congratshellations Carly!

carly oliver junonia

Sara from Kentucky said “It’s a start, right?” when she found a JUNONIA cob at Blind Pass. I told her I thought it was a great find and this was the perfect one to make a piece of jewelry with…

junonia shell eaten by crab

 It’s so funny because I haven’t been finding many of the bigger shells at all lately. Maybe my eyes have just been focusing on the minis because that’s all I’ve been seeing. I was just at Bunche Beach and didn’t see one ANGEL WING… and look at all of the ANGEL WINGS Brenda from Lehigh Acres found!

brenda's angel wings

 As I always say, the beaches change every day and also by the hour with the changing tides. That’s what keeps us hunting! Brenda not only found ANGEL WINGS, she found a different shell I haven’t seen (or noticed) before. She found several double STRIATE PIDDOCK shells…

brenda striate piddock sanibel shell

These are in the same family as ANGEL WINGS but much smaller and…   ummmmm… not as pretty. I was thrilled for her that she was excited to find something she had never found before. They are pretty fascinating (the shells AND Brenda!). The shell is almost paper thin at the “tail” (dorsal) but when the animal is alive, it is strong enough to bore through wood to do extensive damage to wood pilings or any submerged wood for that matter.

striate piddock wood borer

After I told her I had never seen one out of the wood either, I was tickled that she gave me one of the 5 that she found. She opened up her eyeglass case that kept them safe from getting crunched (great idea!), then handed me one of them. Thank you Brenda! Who “wood” get “bored” with stuff like this showing up on the beach? heehee

striate piddock wood boring