Photos of a living horse conch living in the shallows of the Indian River Lagoon.
Another beautiful day out on the water brought some nice finds. This beautiful living horse conch was crawling along the sandy flats. I picked it up briefly to get a few photos. It was a gorgeous orange snail. The shell was muddy and not so pretty, as is usually the case.
This is the area where this mollusk lives. The water temperature was around 86 degrees F. Air temperature was close to 100. Very few boats came by and we were all alone.
The sea hare is a strange looking creature that you most likely would not want to pick up. More than likely you would say “what the heck is that?”
It’s a slippery blob that can be dark purple or yellow-green, depending on the type, and it might be washed up on just about any Florida shoreline. The sea hare lives in shallow water in sea grass. Like so much marine life, it can be found washed up on shore after a storm.
They will release a purple ink (like in this photo) when stressed.
An interesting fact about the sea hare is that they eat blue-green algae which sometimes contaminates water. I’ve read about a number of creatures that help our environment by doing this.
The seashell matching worksheet has twelve sea life images with a list of names in the center. Print it out as a worksheet for students or kids who are curious about sea life.
I’ve been creating seashell coloring pages for a while with a single shell (or two) on each page. This new “match the seashells to their names” worksheet is more of a learning page for classroom or home-school teaching. I’m offering this page as a free, fun printable for home or classroom, and not as something to copy and sell. The images are mine and are copyrighted.
My hope is that young kids may become interested in seashells and the creatures that make them. The “names” of the shells and urchin and sand dollars are simple, but more information can be found on some of the pages of this blog.
Complete the worksheet by drawing lines from the name of the shell to the image. Because the printout is in black and white, it might be fun to research each type of shell to see it’s coloring. If you need help figuring out some of the shell names, I have links to pages for each one below, or visit my page about local seashells.
You can become more familiar with the different types of shells at my Types of Shells article which I wrote at the Wizzley writing site. Or peruse this blog where most of these shells have their own page of info.
This free, printable, page lists twelve common names of shells with the corresponding shell art along each side. Kids can draw a line to connect the picture with the name and then they can color the page.
Match the shells on the worksheet above as follows:
Left side: Sea Urchin, Worm Shells, Spiny Jewel Box, Sundial, Arrowhead Sand Dollar, Atlantic Auger
Right Side: Fighting Conch, Sea Cookie (puffy sand dollar), Queen Conch, Chambered Nautilus, Lightning Whelk, Cowry
Photos of a living horse conch living in the shallows of the Indian River Lagoon.
Found lots of knobbed whelks on this deserted island beach in Mosquito Lagoon. And a few other pretty shells.
Many people dream of having a beach all to themselves. Because we have a boat, we often get to be on deserted beaches. But you can find deserted, and semi-deserted beaches in Florida, at certain times. It also helps if you have a boat with a low draft. These photos are just a few from…
