Be careful of what you wish for! I’ve been secretly hoping for some “bling” for Christmas. Meaning like… shiny, pretty, glitzy wearable “bling”. But instead I got raggedy, stringy, gooey “bling”… BEACH BLING!
If you know me, you know that I get more excited about discovering something new washing in on the beach than getting any new fancy, shiny jewelry. Errrrr.. well most of the time. LOL But really, I found this dried clump of some sort of stringy mass at Lighthouse Beach today.
Cool! So I looked a little closer to inspect its identity…. and realized that it’s a FIGHTING CONCH EGG STRING!
The little eggs inside these strings will turn into this one day…
Doesn’t that just blow your mind? And remember? Back in July, I saw a live FIGHTING CONCH laying her eggs (to see the post CLICK HERE)…
Unfortunately the string I found today was too dried up for any of the eggs to make it but that’s why the females lay so many eggs. Some will make it! Any maybe that’s why at different time of the year we see thousands at time on the beach… maybe they are mating!
See? This is why I love my BEACH BLING so much! There are endless possibilities of treasures Mother Nature will give us to ponder over. Like the other Bling I found today. A RAGGED SEA HARE! Poor guy was washed up on the beach but I could see “he” was still alive and moving so I took hime to the water. I took a very quick video today but if you missed my last video on the RAGGED SEA HARE, it is waaaaayyyy better with a few added funnies CLICK HERE.
Here is today’s version of me trying to save this SEA HARE and all of his “raggedness”.
I didn’t find many keeper shells today at the Lighthouse Beach since I was too obsessed with the Bling. When I got home I still felt like I needed my shell fix so I finally rinsed (plain water, don’t use bleach!) off my COCQUINAS from earlier this week. Oh, and yes, I left in that cute little TURKEY WING too.
Hope to see you at the parade tomorrow!
Holy fighting conch! Capt. Brian
Another life saved by Pam Rambo! This little feller looks much different than the larger one you videoed a while ago. If I passed him/her on the beach, I probably would have thought it was a deceased urchin. Thanks for today’s lesson, teach!
I had my husband take a picture of some “pasta” beach bling I found in November. I’ll post it to Facebook once he’s sends me the shot. It was rainbow pasta, and I don’t remember seeing anything like it before.
Have fun at the parade tomorrow, can’t wait to see your rig!
Hey Pam! Good luck with the Parade! We are here, arrived yesterday middle of the day, but are still a bit groggy. All the very best to you and Super Sheller Clark!
Have fun, Susan! Good luck with your research!!
Thanks Donna! Hoping to find some new additions to the SWFL list! Like Pam says, there’s a tremendous amount of erosion right now so the beaches are smaller and steeper. By the time you come I expect the beach sand will be all back to normal proportions. :)
I hope you find everything you are looking for.
Thanks Katherine, I’m searching the “grunge” to find interesting micro shells. I don’t seem to have much competition in that! :) So far so good. But I need a couple more days to feel rested and caught up with myself as I was sick with a bad cold before I came out here.
By the way the weather here right now is fine, kind of hot during the day and cool and night and this week, sunny.
I wonder what recent storm it was that stripped all that sand away??
Hi Susan H.,
I found a few tiny bivalves in some shell crush and I wonder if there is a good reference book for these smaller shells. I don’t know if what I have are juveniles or the adult version of a “micro” shell. They look like they might be a tiny version of a lucine – a very thin and slightly transparent rounded shell that’s about half the size of the head of a pencil. I think crafters might refer to a larger version as a cup shell, but I’m not sure about that.
Have a wonderful time and keep us posted on your finds. Hope you are feeling better soon! :)
Oops! To clarify – I should have said “it’s half the size of a pencil ERASER, not “head of a pencil”. It’s not THAT small.
Hello Janet, It’s great to see that someone else takes an interest in the tiny shells, especially the small white clams! :) There are at least three very small species of lucines in the Sanibel area. Do you have Trish Hartmann’s very good book, “Bivalve Seashells of Florida”? If you d, and you can look on page 95 and 97 you will see the many-lined lucine, the woven lucine and the miniature lucine.
If the shells you are talking about are not only round in outline but are also shaped like half of a globe, I would think they are almost certainly the many-lined lucine.
Where did you find them?
Sorry I could not reply sooner, the WiFi at Blue Dolphin is very on-again, off-again.
Susan,
Thanks for your reply. I don’t have her book, but I’ll have to put it on my Christmas list. I think you are correct, I probably do have some lucines (I googled it and found a photo on line.) I’ll have to photograph them to make identification easier. Are you taking photos of the shells you are finding? If you’d like to correspond more, Pam has my email address. Good luck and have fun!
Susan,
To answer your question, I found the tiny shells in a random pile of shell crush. Unfortunately, I don’t remember which area of the island it was.
The Hartmann book is $22, so it’s relatively inexpensive, and the photos are really excellent.
You are welcome to write to me; tell Pam I said it’s OK to give you my email address.
I don’t routinely photograph my finds, and white micros are especially hard to make a decent image of, but I can usually find an OK image online of most species.
I am starting to feel better, thanks for asking, but I could used more more day in order to feel really good I think.
Susan,
The weather sounds perfect to me. You are not missing much from home. The Northeast is cold, damp and rainy. Certainly not festive.
Maybe the erosion will have exposed some great shells that no one has been able to find due to all the sand. :)
Feel better and keep us updated.
Well I am finding a lot of really interesting micros, which makes me really happy :) but some of the shellers I talked to on West Gulf Drive are saying there are not as many of the big pretty shells as usual, maybe because the slope of the beach is steeper right now due to erosion and therefore some of the larger shells are not making it up onto the beach, but are sitting out in the shallow water somewhere.
I cant say Ive ever seen the egg casing of conchs or at least I dont think I have!
Great to know. Thanx Pam!!
I love learning new things from your blog. I will now keep my eyes peeled for them!!
Have a great time at the parade. I read that the Travel Channel will be there taping it!
Post lots of pictures when you get the chance!!
Wow….I was so busy taking pixs as the parade started out, that I missed seeing you and your float-so it was good to say hello when you came back by the Bubble House! Cool float! Bob and I are learning all the fun stuff on Sanibel and Captiva….The luminary was great, and the parade too. I got my shell fix dipping apple murex and turkey wings in acid to bring out the colors before we headed to the parade….was so busy I didn’t realize we hadn’t eaten lunch!!!! Then we had to slow down for a HUGE gator crossing the road near the sanctuary. And on the way back, we took a turn through a subdivision with a lake, where we saw a mama gator and two foot long babies….soooooo cute! We didn’t get out! lol. What fun. Love this island. Anyway, hats off to iloveshelling.com’s cute cart float!
Hey Pam, You must be exhausted! I am starting to feel a bit better, getting some energy back.
Let me know if and when you want to see all the cool very small shells I have been finding. Some new ones to me and a few I think will be new to Jose’s list of SWFL shells.
I also found one very nice fresh Florida cone.
Oh, P.S., the WiFi here at Blue Dolphin is still very sporadic so I often can’t get an internet connection or if I can get one sometimes it is very slow indeed.
That’s not a fighting conch egg case. those are sear hare egg casings.