Category: Conchs

Conch shells are gastropods, or shells in one piece.

The Crown Shell is a Perfect Home for Hermit Crabs

The crown shell is beautiful and a nice addition to a seashell collection, if it is not inhabited by the mollusk or a hermit crab.

The crown conch shell is one I see a lot while boating and walking in the river at low tide. Usually they are not very pretty and are covered in mud and green stuff. The larger ones tend to be broken, but they make nice homes for hermit crabs when the snail dies.

IMG_0607 hermit crb

The crown conch shell, sometimes called king’s crown, is recognizable by it’s pointy ridges and horizontal stripes.  When cleaned up, it’s a beautiful specimen.  When found in the wild, it may only be recognized by the points along the top of the swirls.

While visiting the intracoastal waterway (Indian River) backwater area this summer, I saw many crown conch shells in a variety of sizes.  They were often inhabited, not by the snail that made them, but by a hermit crab.

Many years ago my kids had hermit crabs as pets. This was mostly due to the fact that my daughter wanted to have one of every kind of animal on earth as her pet. We had to buy gravel to put in a small container for the crab and we had to provide empty seashells for it to move into when it grew.

Now I wonder how the hermit crabs we had as pets lived at all, since the ones I saw in the wild stay completely under water. And it’s salt water. They are walking all over the shallows and could be in deeper water too I suspect.  Apparently, after learning more about hermit crabs, there are different types, including my run in with the Giant Red Hermit Crab.

I would have come home with quite a nice collection of shells if not for the fact that hermit crabs had taken up residence in every one available!

hermit crab


Besides the beautiful striped crown shell, I found pear whelks and lightning whelks. The unique round shark’s eye was another I couldn’t collect. You can’t see the hermit crabs, but they are tucked down inside these shells.

Crown conch and shark’s eye postcard
Buy this image as a postcard in my Seashells by Millhill store.

Then, I finally found a crown shell with the snail inside (photo below). I took it out of the water for a moment to snap a photo and then I put him back. One day his shell will most likely be a hermit crab home.

crown shell and mollusk inside

More Stories From the Blog


Seashells That Are Pink

Want to make a seashell collection of only pink shells? Then you must search the sand for some small shells like the Rose Petal Tellin. This one is a rosy pink both inside and out. It’s a bivalve and lives under the sand in the ocean, but the shells can be washed up on shore. Other tellin shells can have streaks of pink, but the Rose Petal (Tellin lineata) is the one that will be an all-over pink.  In Florida the rose colored tellin can be found mainly on the southern beaches, but it is possible to find them farther north.

Certain scallop shells can be very pretty and you may find some that are pinkish.  The Zigzag scallop (Euvola ziczac) has purplish zigzag lines over a variety of pink, purple, and peach background colors.  The calico scallop is usually more of a purple, but the light red ones can pass as pink.  Continue reading “Seashells That Are Pink”

Shell Size and Age of Mollusk: Queen Conch

two queen conchs pngMy mind has really been on boating and the water lately but now I am back to thinking about seashells, specifically the queen conch (Strombus gigas) and the creatures who live in them.

Someone who read my  Seashell Identification page at Wizzley asked  how old my conch shell was.  I have a picture posted on my page and she said that her shell looked like mine.

I get all kinds of questions now about seashells and I am not an expert, but I try to find the answer if I can.  It seems that the Queen conch reaches it’s mature size by age five, but it can live up to 30 (sometimes 40) years!  Therefore the size of the shell would not necessarily be an indicator of it’s age. Once the shell reaches a certain size it can become thicker, but not larger in general.

I bought my two large conch shells probably twenty years ago. I would no longer buy a shell like this.  In fact, they (and the animal inside) are protected now.  Do not ever collect one from the wild!   Not only is it illegal, you would be contributing to their decline.  In their natural habitat, the queen conch – or pink conch – lives in warm, shallow water and can be found among reefs, but maybe not for long.  Due to it’s beautiful shell and the tasty (supposedly) critter inside, too many queen conchs have been harvested over the years leaving the population of this magnificent mollusk in decline.

If you ever see a living pink conch, get the camera, photograph it, and then leave it in peace.  And don’t order conch from the menu!