{"id":20596,"date":"2015-06-06T21:36:43","date_gmt":"2015-06-07T01:36:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.iloveshelling.com\/blog\/?p=20596"},"modified":"2020-06-05T13:06:49","modified_gmt":"2020-06-05T17:06:49","slug":"6-most-common-shells-on-sanibel-island-florida","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.iloveshelling.com\/blog\/2015\/06\/06\/6-most-common-shells-on-sanibel-island-florida\/","title":{"rendered":"6 Most Common Shells On Sanibel Island, Florida"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"The<\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Have you ever wondered what are the most common seashells that wash up on Sanibel? We see them every day on the beach but all of those “little white CLAM shells” start to look the same and we tend to look over all of them in search for our favorites like the TULIPS and WHELKS.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"common<\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

If you have shelled the beaches of Southwest Florida several times, then you might not be surprised to hear…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The 6 most common shells found in beach drift on Sanibel, Florida are:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

TRANSVERSE ARK (Anadara transversa), <\/em>CROSS-BARRED VENUS (Chione elevata<\/em>), PONDEROUS ARK (Noetia ponderosa<\/em>), KITTENS PAW (Plicatula gibbosa<\/em>), COQUINA (Donax variabilis<\/em>) and the JINGLE (Anomia simplex<\/em>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"6<\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

They look pretty familiar don’t they?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Sanibel<\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

The TRANSVERSE ARK (Anadara transversa) <\/em>seashells are literally everywhere on our beaches and this is why it’s hard to find any other shell on the beach because we get so overwhelmed by looking at so many of these “little white clams shells”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"ark<\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

CROSS-BARRED VENUS (Chione elevata) <\/em>shells always intrigue me because they have so many different interior colors<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Sanibel<\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

PONDEROUS ARK (Noetia ponderosa<\/em>) normally looks like just a bigger version of the TRANSVERSE ARK but when they are juveniles, it is really hard to tell the difference. Closely looking at the interior is the only way to decipher the juvie PONDEROUS from the adult TRANSVERSE.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"common<\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

KITTENS PAW (Plicatula gibbosa<\/em>) – How can you walk on a beach in Sanibel and not smile when you see one of these?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Sanibel<\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

COQUINA (Donax variabilis<\/em>) shells have stolen the hearts of most of us the first time we walked on the beach and saw these sweet little butterfly shells scattered along the beach.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Sanibel<\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

JINGLE (Anomia simplex<\/em>) shells are like shimmering little beacons calling out from the sand- love them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Sanibel<\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

So how do I know that these are the most common shells on Sanibel? Well, because Susan Hewitt (our Susan H !) did a comprehensive but simple research study of the most abundance shell species while she was visiting Sanibel in 2011. She took loads of samples all along West Gulf Drive to separate and count each species. (This was not her sample bag in this next photo- she had buckets full)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Susan<\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

I helped with her study by scooping up shells for her shell material research on the beach at Blind Pass Sanibel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Common<\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

I also took samples at Sanibel’s Lighthouse beach for her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Sanibel<\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

After identifying, separating and counting every single shell collected, she got to work on writing her paper. To read her entire study paper, CLICK HERE<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Sanibel<\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

So now we know! It was so much fun being involved in her very cool project to answer the question asked about our beaches of Southwest Florida “What are the most common shells on Sanibel?”. Thanks Susan H for this awesome report!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"pam<\/figure><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Have you ever wondered what are the most common seashells that wash up on Sanibel? We see them every day on the beach but all of those “little white CLAM shells” start to look the same and we tend to look over all of them in search for our favorites like the TULIPS and WHELKS. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":20580,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[694,45,1079,24,55,782,2279,1395],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20596","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ark-shell","category-coquina","category-cross-barred-venus","category-jingle","category-kittens-paw","category-ponderous-ark-ark-shell","category-seashell-fun-facts","category-transverse-ark","et-has-post-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.iloveshelling.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/6-Six-most-common-shells-on-Sanibel-Florida.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3Nubb-5mc","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iloveshelling.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20596","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iloveshelling.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iloveshelling.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iloveshelling.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iloveshelling.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20596"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.iloveshelling.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20596\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29596,"href":"https:\/\/www.iloveshelling.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20596\/revisions\/29596"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iloveshelling.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20580"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iloveshelling.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20596"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iloveshelling.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20596"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iloveshelling.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20596"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}