Sea shells

[oldmansurfer]

Lots of people spending time at the beach. Any shell collectors here?

[billie_morini]

Ol' Man,
you have some beautiful shells there. I'm not a formal collector, but I like to bring home one or more shells from special places or to remind me of a really good surfing day. A few months ago I was in Captiva, Florida, for work. This is a shell collector's paradise. It is a pretty place and the business trip was successful, so I filled a miniature jam jar with some small shells to remind me of the adventure. When my beloved German short hair pointer died, I went to our favorite remote stretch of beach (Gaviota) and collected sand, shells, and other odd bits. With these, I made a little diorama to remind me of her. We keep it on our covered porch. I'll often look at shells encountered because they are interesting, but only make them keepsakes for special occasions.
billie

[oldmansurfer]

Yeah Captive and Sanibel is awesome shelling. Kauai is not so good but I have been doing it a long time. I even collect microshells some 0.5 mm. Nice tribute for your dog.

these are small shells

[billie_morini]

Wow! Love the photomicrograph! That's fancy scientist speak for the microscopic or stereoscope photo. Those little shells are awesome and remind us there is much more to nature than many people know. Very cool, too, that you are familiar with Captiva and Sanibel.

[oldmansurfer]

There is probably more micro species than macro. here are a couple, the first a triphoridae and the second a turridae . The above first micro picture is actually unsorted rubble including some foraminera, the roundish looking things

[jaffa1949]

Oldman you know in the first picture the shells you show are members of the cone shell family which if collected live have a great risk of envenomating you with fatal neurotoxins!

[oldmansurfer]

Most of them aren't capable of killing you but the one that is turned sideways to the rest is one of the ones that might or at least cause sever pain and paralysis of whatever part it stung if it were alive. I knew someone stung by one and she didn't die. They are currently working on finding uses for the toxins in cones. There is at least one drug approved from them, a painkiller. I hear research is being done to use the toxins as insecticides.

[jaffa1949]

Must be the Aussie version that is!

[oldmansurfer]

Most cone shells eat a variety of other bottom dwellers but the ones you have to watch out for are the ones that eat fish. Yeah that is right some of those cone shells hunt and eat fish. Their toxins need to be particularly potent to stun and immobilize the fish before it can swim away. As you can figure fish swim a hell of a lot faster than snails. Anyway I have a little story about a cone shell that I kept in a salt water aquarium when I was at University of Hawaii. This particular cone shell ate other sea shells. Every weekend I would go get a live sea shell to feed it. My pals would all make me wait till they could gather together bring in chairs beer and pop corn or whatever snacks and I would drop a live shell in and they would drink beer and bet on how long it would take for the cone shell to eat the new shell. Most of the time this shell just sits buried in the sand in the bottom of the aquarium. It has a snorkel like appendage that sticks up above the sand called a siphon and it uses that to pull water across it's gills. It also serves as a scent organ I guess since as soon as I drop the shell in the siphon starts moving back and forth sort of like radar honing in on the new shell. It then pops up out of the sand and chases down the shell stings it and eats it. Generally it's killed the other shell within 5 minutes but if the new shell was a fast crawler then it might take much longer. LOL The silly things we did in college.

[edward123]

Lots of people spending time at the beach. Any shell collectors here?

Hello,
I like the photos that you share. I want to know did you find them or you buy them from somewhere....

[oldmansurfer]

I found them at various spots around Kauai. Long ago.

[Big H]

We have buckets full out back....sometimes after a storm or at particularly low tide I'll pick some up....kids like to collect and they have piles....we have a freshwater tank with fish in the house; I soak the shells and change out the water until the salt is out and then put some of the more choice ones into the tank.

[oldmansurfer]

After Hurricane Iwa was a particular good time for shells