{"id":9636,"date":"2012-02-26T22:54:10","date_gmt":"2012-02-27T03:54:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.iloveshelling.com\/blog\/?p=9636"},"modified":"2020-03-22T19:25:26","modified_gmt":"2020-03-22T23:25:26","slug":"mystique-of-a-freak","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.iloveshelling.com\/blog\/2012\/02\/26\/mystique-of-a-freak\/","title":{"rendered":"Mystique Of A Freak"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"freak<\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Ahhhhh Freak Out! Le Freak. C’est Chic. Freak Out! … Remember that song? Wouldn’t you freak if you found this FREAK LIGHTNING WHELK?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

Martine<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong>(from my last post) introduced me to her neighbors Ron and Lucienne because they too love to shell. As soon as I saw their picnic table loaded with shells, I spotted this LIGHTNING WHELK. I freaked out when I saw the curly tail on this guy!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

What’s a FREAK shell? It’s a shell\u00a0with an abnormal structure, albinism, dwarf, giant or some sort of growth defect or maybe even a strange color pattern. This is Lucienne proudly displaying her FREAK WHELK…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

After I calmed down about the curly tailed freak, I spotted something else. Another freakin’ FREAK!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

Looks like a PEAR WHELK, right? I know, but I don’t think it is (although I could be wrong). I guess it could be a left handed PEAR WHELK with a strange apex but I what ever it is, it’s a FREAK! In my humble opinion, I think it’s a LIGHTNING WHELK that is a “Knobless Wonder<\/a><\/strong>” in a WHELK version instead of a HORSE CONCH. Look! It doesn’t have the spines that LIGHTNING WHELKS normally have. Believe it or not, they had two of these they found the same day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

Lucienne’s husband Ron was especially proud of this huge, beautiful KING’S CROWN he found as well. Wow! gorgeous…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

 Even this one looks like it is a little unusual (not to mention the size of it!) because of a second row of spines…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

I wouldn’t consider this one to be a FREAK but this LIGHTNING WHELK had a slight bend to the base (or what I like to call the “tail”). And look at the color on this baby- fabulous!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

 Look at all these beauties!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

 I asked Ron and Lucienne where they find their best shells. They told me they love to shell in the bays around Sanibel in their homemade kayaks. Yes, you heard that right. They made both of these beautiful kayaks!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

Thank you for sharing your treasures, Ron and Lucienne. I had an incredible time drooling over your incredible shell collection… especially those FREAKS- I’m still freaked! It’s hard to say what causes mollusks to have abnormal growth patterns like “Curly Tail” but there could be many reasons including lack of food, healing after damage by predators, water quality (red tide) or who knows…. it could be just in the DNA. Whatever it is, i LOVE FREAK SHELLS!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

Ahhhhh Freak Out! Le Freak. C’est Chic. Freak Out! … Remember that song? Wouldn’t you freak if you found this FREAK LIGHTNING WHELK? Martine\u00a0(from my last post) introduced me to her neighbors Ron and Lucienne because they too love to shell. As soon as I saw their picnic table loaded with shells, I spotted this LIGHTNING WHELK. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9650,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1246,13,38,108],"tags":[1600,1599,1598,1602,1603,1601],"class_list":["post-9636","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-freak-shells","category-kings-crown","category-lightning-whelk-whelk","category-pear-whelk","tag-abnormal-seashell","tag-definition-of-a-freak-shell","tag-freak-seashell","tag-knobless-wonder-2","tag-left-handed-pear-whelk","tag-mollusk-growth","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\/2012\/02\/freak-lightning-whelk-curly-tail.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3Nubb-2vq","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iloveshelling.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9636","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=9636"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.iloveshelling.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9636\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29337,"href":"https:\/\/www.iloveshelling.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9636\/revisions\/29337"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iloveshelling.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9650"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iloveshelling.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9636"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iloveshelling.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9636"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iloveshelling.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9636"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}