Category: Seashells

Shells of marine snails found along Florida’s beaches and saltwater rivers.

Identifying and Comparing the Cockle Shells

This quest began when I found two pretty, yellowish seashells on a recent beach-combing trip to Ponce Inlet.

yellow prickly cockles and gray shark’s eye shell
Shark’s eye and prickly cockle
yellow pricklycockle gray shell spiral
Yellow prickly cockle and graying whelk spiral

They are shaped a bit like scallops and / or arks but they contain bumps around the sides and bottom of their shells. I knew they were not scallops.

Both new shells (top two in the photo below) were yellow underneath. I also noticed that they had distinct ridges where the shells would have connected. When I looked up these beautiful shells in my identification book, I found that they are both Yellow Pricklycockles.

scallop shells, dosinia, pricklycockles
Top – 2 Pricklycockles, Bottom – 3 scallops

The Yellow Pricklycockle

These shells are a unqiue and rare find for me, but they are not rare shells. According to my reference book, they can be found on beaches all around the state of Florida. Because they look similar to most of the beach bivalves I see, I may very well have passed them over in my beach-combing travels. After all, those ridges would be easy to miss. And the shells I find are not always in great condition.

In the photo below I tried to get a better shot of the ridges on this shell. There are two other types of pricklycockle mentioned in my Seashell ID book and are the “Even” and “Florida” pricklycockle. This yellow type grows to a max of 2.5 inches.

  • Pricklycockle seashell
  • bumpy ridges on the yellow prickly cockle shell
    Spiky ridges on the shell
  • yellow prickly cockle shell

This Shell Got a Brush Cleaning

As I dug through my shells, looking for more cockle shells, I came across this rather ugly, but rough shell. It was a pricklycockle alright, but it was caked with sand and had been hiding in the bottom of my shell dish.

I began to photograph it and decided it really needed a cleaning. Usually I clean off my shells when I get home, but this one somehow got put away dirty. So, I brushed the mud off with a stiff brush and the yellow began to show up!

This is the same shell as in the six photos above! It cleaned up nicely. To my knowledge I now have a total of three yellow pricklycockle shells.

  • Dirty pricklycockle shell
  • Dirty pricklycockle

The Atlantic Giant Cockle

Sometimes the underside of bivalves can give better clues as to what type of shell I’m looking at. Often they can look very much alike on the outside.

I noticed that the yellow pricklycockles have distinct protrusions up at the top where the shells attach. When I flipped over the Giant Atlantic cockles in my collection, they had the same unique feature. They are also cockles.

underside of the giant Atlantic cockle shell
The underside of the Atlantic cockle
yellow pricklycockles
See the underside similarities in the cockle shells

I see the big Atlantic cockles quite often and they are usually quite large. Often they are open in the sand where they have most likely been dropped by a predatory shore bird. Usually they are tan in color with splotches of darker brown. The underside can be brown-purple to pretty pink. I always thought they were some kind of clam. Cockles are not clams.

large cockle shells
Giant Atlantic cockles and yellow pricklycockles

I don’t color my photographs when I get them ready to share on this blog. The colors you see here are very close to actual shell colors.

  • comparing undersides of cockle shells
    Atlantic and yellow cockles
  • cockle shells underside
    colors under

Once I noticed the similarities, I began to dig through my shell collection to see if I had any more unidentified cockles. Turn your bivalves over and it may help with identification.

Digging Through My Seashell Collection

As I began to search through my seashell collection, I got carried away. I began organizing by piling similar shells together. My next venture is to identify the various arks because many of those look a lot alike. I also found a few one-of-a-kind shells which means I rarely find them where I live.

seashell collection
Digging through my collection of shells
yellow pricklycockle shell
The Pricklycockle is the newest addition to my collection

March Hermits in Medium Size Horse Conch

A chilly boat ride took us to Three Sisters, among other places, where we found interesting shells filled with hermit crabs. Often I have seen tiny horse conchs, and a few times we’ve seen massive horse conchs, but this horse conch was medium size.

Hermit crab in a medium size horse conch shell
Spotted a cool horse conch among the oyster shells

As I waded through the 62 degree water on a 60 degree day, with a wind chill, I came across this pretty little shell. I knew right off that it was a horse conch, but it was larger than the ones I usually find.

Smaller horse conch seashell found in the mud
Dirty but pretty seashell

This shell had a very large hermit crab inside and he was tucked way down in. I couldn’t keep the shell so I got a few pictures on my iPhone, which I hoped would come out.

Here you can see the pretty lines and bumps which make up the shell, and orange to reddish brown coloring. I’m guessing that this shell was about 5-6 inches long. The snail had died for whatever reason, and a large hermit crab had moved in. Although I previously had read that Hermit crabs do NOT kill mollusks for their shell, this article has opened my eyes to the possibility. However, the crab mentioned lives in farther southern waters.

It is curious as to how hermit crabs just happen to find empty shells the correct size to hold their bodies. In this vast expanse of river, how would that happen? Hermit crabs don’t run around without shells, so how does it all begin?

A few weeks ago when we were out on the river, there were no hermit crabs anywhere, and very few shells at all. It makes me wonder if any of the hermits I see will kill a mollusk / snail and take over the shell for their home.

horse conch
Smaller horse conch shell with hermit crab inside

The horse conch shell was not in perfect condition and it was encrusted with mud, but it was a beauty just the same. Had it lived, it may have become up to 2 feet long. We have occasionally seen living horse conchs out on the little islands along the Indian River backwaters.

horse conch

We drove the Hewe’s Redfisher in behind Three Sisters and walked the sandy areas that were showing at low tide. But the water was coming back in, so the sand was disappearing. My son found a starfish / sea star, which I have never come across ever. This one was unfortunately dead and was missing two legs with another one broken. I came across a few gatherings of hermit crabs where it appeared they were checking out each other’s shells. We saw lots of little “baby” mollusks crawling about as well. This area is usually full of interesting wild creatures from the sea, and today did not disappoint.

Medium size horse conch seashell
Pretty horse conch

Various Horse Conchs I’ve Seen on Florida’s East Coast

  • Me and my daughter with horse conch
    Found a living horse conch
  • horse conch seashells
    Two shells and one black cat
  • living horse conch
    Guessing this bleached white horse conch is about 8 inches long.
  • Crusty horse conch living on flats
    Horse conch disguised
  • juvenile horse conch seashell
    Baby horse conch shell
  • horse conch seashell
    Horse Conch
  • old horse conch seashell underwater
    Spotting the old horse conch just offshore
  • Four hermit crabs in the wild
    Four hermits in various seashells

Even if the shells can’t be collected, the photos are fun to share. Being educated about what can be found in this wilderness area of Florida is my goal with this blog.

Why I Love to Find a Dosinia Clam Shell

Where I live the white, very flat, dosinia shell is a rare find. On the west / gulf coast of Florida they are more abundant. It’s one reason I love to find them on my beach-combing adventures. Also, they are simply very pretty shells.

The Dosinia below is an Elegant Dosinia, I believe and it was collected from Sanibel Island years ago. The beginnings of a hole on top was probably made by a predatory gastropod of some type. They drill into shells and eat the insides, killing the mollusk.

Dosinia in black and white
Elegant Dosinia

The Differences Between Disc Dosinias and Elegant Dosinias

Dosinias are easy to spot because they are nearly flat, unlike other types of clams which are more sloped. One major difference between the Disc and Elegant dosinia shells is the ridges. Both types contain tightly spaced horizontal ridges, but the Elegant dominica’s ridges are more easily seen. Most of the shells I collect here on the East coast of Florida are disc dosinias. They are very smooth with small ridges – see the shells below.

disc dosinia seashells
Disc Dosinia Seashells

I’ve added more Dosinias to my collection as time goes on. The large white one below was picked up by my youngest son on New Smyrna Beach. He knows I have an interest in shells so he always keeps an eye out for something I may want. I was very excited when he showed it to me.

Dosinia clam shells in all sizes
Dosinia seashells

The smaller shells in my photos were collection on an island near Disappearing Island at Ponce Inlet. I don’t know why, but that area had a large collection of very tiny Dosinias. I think it may have been a hatchery for the mollusk.

Dosinia, jingle shells, Lightning Venus clam
Dosinia, jingle shells (white and black), Lightning Venus clam

Sometimes the Dosinia is found in one piece, with both parts of the bivalve still attached. It’s rare to find a shell like this near rough surf as the waves tend to break shells apart. The Lightning Venus clam in the photo above is a rare find for me as well. I think it’s the only one I have in my collection.

dosinia seashell
A Dosinia in one piece

At least the bivalves cannot be inhabited by hermit crabs so when I find one, I am able to collect it without worry. Since I have quite a few in my collection at this point, I only collect the outstanding Dosinias I find these days.

Below is a collection of shells that include a Dosinia at the bottom with a hole in the shell. Shark’s Eye mollusks are a gastropod that will eat Dosinias. Other clams shown here are arks and a channeled duck clam. Read more about black seashells on my post here, and see shells that are commonly found along the Florida coastline.

Collection of seashells
Black shells: Jingle shell, Ark, Channeled Duck Clam, and also: broken Olive shells, yellow arks, Dosinia shell