Tag: Identification

Sea Life Specimens Under Glass

At Smyrna Dunes Park in New Smyrna Beach there is a display of sea life specimens under glass. At the pavilion by the parking area this case of seashells, sea urchins, sand dollars and sea stars (starfish) can be found near the public bathrooms.

The photos aren’t very good because of glare, but I thought it would be fun to share the variety of sea life here on my blog. Many shells in this collection are very familiar to me, and others I have never found.

  • sea urchin tests
    Sea urchins
  • murex shells
    Murex shells
  • Florida starfish nine-legged, five-legged
    Sea stars

I’ve printed the names of most items on the photo below so they can be read easier. At the top to the far left are the olive shells, and on the far right are oysters.

On my travels to beaches at the ocean and along the river I have never found the following: Scotch bonnet, paper fig, nutmeg shell and murex.

This collection is probably meant to represent the entire state and not only what is found near this park. They also have a Paper Nautilus which I’ve never even heard of. (See it in the center below, just beneath the Baby’s Ear.)

Sea life collection under glass
Seashell and sea life Identification

Most often I find arks / clams, shark’s eye (moonsnail), crown conch, horse conch, lightning whelk, pear whelk (I forgot to print it, but they are next to the Paper Fig), slipper shells (above the lightning whelks) and jingle shells. See my gallery slide show below.

I’m less likely to see olives and tulips. I’ve only found pieces of sand dollars, but a nice lady once gave me a whole sand dollar while I was walking the beach. I have never found a starfish or sea urchin.

My Seashell Photos

Shells (and live snails) I’ve photographed on my beach-combing travels. Only empty shells are collected and most gastropods I find are either alive, with the snail inside, or have a hermit crab residing.

I have a round, flat bowl full of my favorite shell finds, so these days I rarely take shells home unless they really stand out as unusual. Recently I picked up two yellow pricklycockles to add to the collection.

  • crown conch
    Crown conch
  • tulip shell with barnacles
    Tulip
  • fighting conch
    Fighting conch
  • Lightning whelks and pear whelks
    Lightning and Pear Whelks
  • black and silver jingle shells
    Jingle shells
  • lettered olive shells
    Olive shells
  • Beautiful sharks eye moon shell
    Shark’s Eye
  • Smaller horse conch seashell found in the mud
    Horse conch
  • white baby’s ear shell
    Although it’s yellow, I believe this is the white baby’s ear
  • Slipper shells orange and black
    Slipper Shell

Read More About Smyrna Dunes Park

Identifying Your Seashells, Where to Start?

How to identify the seashell you collect.

picture of tropical seashells collection
Some of my Florida seashells

You’ve just returned home from a vacation at the beach and each day you added to your collection of treasures amassed from walks along the shore. As you clean the shells and carefully add them to a glass bowl, you begin to wonder just what they are called.  Is it possible there is a rare seashell in your bucket?  To begin a search for names of shells, I have a few pointers to pass on.

Besides this blog, I have written an article about Types of Shells where I include photos and descriptions of some of my seashells.  I am not a seashell expert, so although I will try to help you identify something, I usually find helpful information in my favorite seashell ID books.

bookMy favorite Florida beaches ID book is Florida’s Living Beaches by Blair and Dawn Witherington.  It covers more than seashells because Florida beaches also contain bugs, birds, turtles, driftwood, sea glass, animal tracks, flowers, plants, dunes, and even rocks.  It is a complete beachcombing guide.

Most people don’t realize the abundant variety of shells out there. To make it easier to identify the shell in your possession, first narrow down the field. If you search for “seashells” you will be overwhelmed – mostly with photos and not too much info. The truth is that most people love seashells but that is where it stops. Most, I believe, don’t ever give much thought to what lived inside and how the shell was created, or how it got to the spot where you picked it up, much less what it might be called.  So photos online will be easy to find, but where is that picture (and info) you need to identify what you have?

Gastropod or Bivalve?

The first thing I suggest when searching online is to narrow the field by searching for either “gastropod” or “bi-valve“. If your shell was made all in one piece it is a gastropod (univalve), and if it’s in two sections hitched together, like a clam, (even if you only have one half) then it’s a bi-valve. That should give you a bunch of pictures to view. Also mention where it was found.

old worn conch and whelk shells
Worn horse conch and two broken knobbed whelks

Sometimes shells with the same name will vary in appearance.  For instance, the gastropod you found may be a juvenile (baby seashell) and doesn’t look at all like the large shell it would have grown into.   See my Lightning Whelk picture, with mature and juvenile  shells side by side.  It took me a while to figure out what that little one was!

Scallops and clams are found in a variety of colors and sizes as are many other types of shells. Shells which are covered in periostracum (a flaky black substance) may look nothing like the beautiful photos you find online.  And shells that have been worn, broken and filled with tiny holes (like my photo above) may be tough to identify.

Search Using the Scientific Name of the Shell

I suggest buying a good seashell identification book.  Buy one that is specific to your area, or the area you plan to visit, because the same types of shells are not always found everywhere in the world. The great thing about having a book to reference is that it should give you the scientific name of the shells.  The National Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Seashells (National Audubon Society Field Guides) is the book I started with.   Once you find the scientific name of a shell, it’s easier to search online for a picture.

The more you learn about seashells, the less you will take them for granted, and the more you will appreciate each shell you collect for the diverse and amazing animal that created it.

Seashell Identification: About the Florida Crown Conch

The Crown Conch (Melongena corona) seashell, sometimes called a King’s Crown , is one I see often when out on the islands beach-combing.  Because of it’s distinctive pointy spikes around the outer swirls of the shell, I can easily recognize it.

crown conch seashell
Crown conch with abundance of spiky points all around

It’s a pretty shell with horizontal brown, reddish or gray, and off-white stripes on the adults.  I have not seen a living crown conch.  Juvenile shells can be other colors like the purple-blue one below – what a beauty!, and the tan one at the end of this post.

blue crown conch
Blueish-purple juvenile crown conch shell

Usually, when I see them, the colors are partially obscured by slime – as are most of the shells I find.   The part of the shell that has been dragging along the sand is most colorful.

crown conch shell
Crown conch underwater – look closely and see the hermit crab carrying it along

This recent find stood out to me because of all those spikes!  This is really a lot, compared to the ones I usually find (photos further down the page).

crown conch
Crown conch seashell – about 3 inches long
crown conch
Stripes and spikes of the crown conch shell

Juvenile crown conchs will not have those big spikes, but will grow them later on. I found a small one (photo below) but it had a hermit crab inside. So it will never grow up. Hermit crabs don’t kill mollusks that make the shells, but they never miss an opportunity to take possession of an empty shell!

hermit crab in juvenile crown conch shell
Juvenile crown conch (I believe) with hermit crab inside

Once the mollusk dies, hermit crabs move in. In the area where I fish and beach-comb the bottom is sometimes mucky, and that carries over to the shells. Often they are not pretty.  Slime and even oysters can be growing inside, or barnacles on the outside.

Screen Shot 2017-11-21 at 6.51.17 PM
Home to a hermit crab

The huge shell below was one I collected because it was empty. It is broken and worn and the mollusk was obviously old when he died. He’d had plenty of time to create this oversized shell. Max size of the crown conch is 5 inches, and this one measured 6 inches plus. Because it’s not very pretty, it now has a home in my garden.  Empty ones can be cleaned, but I didn’t go nuts with this broken one.  The green and black slime fades away once the shell sits in the hot sun.

huge crown conch
Huge, old crown conch shell – 6 inches

As you can see in many of the photos on this page, the spikey shells also have some spikes near the base of the shell.

Screen Shot 2017-11-21 at 6.51.25 PM
Spikes top and bottom

I live in central Florida on the East coast. Over on the Gulf coast lives a lucky lady who gets to see some awesome seashell happenings.
Here’s a video of baby King’s Crown shells hatching.

May 2020, a walk on the mud flats at low tide brought me to this beauty of a crown conch partially buried. The colors were so unusual and dark.

Spiky dark colored crown conch in mud
This crown conch is alive and half buried. Love that shell color!