Who wants to do some CYBERSHELLING??!! I’ve got it for you! There are days on Sanibel, Captiva and Fort Myers Beach when there are so many great shells washing up to your toes on the beach you feel like you hit the lottery. And there are other days when you just might have to look in the unlikely shell lines high up on the beach to find your hidden treasures. This, my friends, is why I fell in love with shelling….being surprised at finding a beautiful seashell gift of the sea that everybody else passed right on by without a glance. Click on this next photo for some CYBERSHELLING of your own. See if you can find my newest treasure… a BORING TURRET (Turritella acropora)!
Did you find it? Ha! Of course you did because you are on to me now, aren’t you. I put it right in the middle of the photograph- LOL. I found 2 BORING TURRITS in the same area I found my CROSS-HATCHED LUCINES on the new beach/sand bar Blind Pass Captiva.
It looks very similar to the AUGERS…
Gail Carr (from my last post) found 3 of them!
Susan H showed me a beautiful specimen of a BORING TURRITELLA when she was here in December.
Also back in December, brother and sister Greg and Debbie were finding all sorts of great shells…
But with all the hoopla about folks finding CABRITS MUREXES, JUNONIAS and LIONS PAWS, I never got to show you Debbie’s precious find. The one I liked the most was Debbie’s BORING TURRET.
There are many shells from Southwest Florida that may look similar to the BORING TURRET so I’d like to show you a side by side comparison so you will be able to distinguish your shells too. Now you can see how different they are! From left to right- BORING TURRET, AUGER, CERITH and WORM SHELL.
Can you guess which other shell in this group is in the same family TURRITELLIDAE as the “BORING” one? The WORM SHELL!
Yay! Great stuff! I think they are really cool and interesting! The longest one of Gail’s three boring turritellas, it looks as if a crab or some other predator tried to eat it at some point (maybe on two separate occasions), but it survived and grew for a long time afterwards. I always like to see how mollusks are able to mend their shells and keep going after a big attack like that! :)
This is a great post – thank you. I can’t wait to get my mixed box of augers and ceriths out to see if I have ever found one of these!
I was thinking the exact same thing….mine are all mixed up too! Great post…thanks Pam!
Ditto! I just seperated my Ceriths and Augers into two bottles last week. Looking forward to refining my little collection.
A wonderful activity for our second “Snow Day” in a row. Thank you, Pam.
Enjoy your day.
Ditto! I just seperated my Ceriths and Augers into two bottles last week. Looking forward to refining my little collection.
A wonderful activity for our second “Snow Day” in a row.
Thank you, Pam.
Enjoy your day.
The boring turret and worm shell are 2 of my favorite small shells!
This is really handy, Pam, thanks. Can you do a side-by-side comparison of similar-looking shells like young fighting conchs and drill shells, and others like them?
Hi Karen, I have a similar comparison here… http://www.iloveshelling.com/blog/2012/02/06/similar-small-sanibel-seashells/
I love to cyber shell, it gets me ready for the real thing. 2 more weeks and I will be leaving frigid Ohio to do some shelling. Love it! Hope I can find some of the treasure’s on my list!
Very nice post
I agree with Beth – cybershelling is the best — it helps train my eye for coming down to Florida to shell – early March for me and I can’t wait!
Pam any Shellabaloo 6 planned in fall? I need to make air line reservations about 6 months prior – have a bonus check I am dying to spend on a Shellabaloo trip! Thanks for considering to let us plan ahead.
Bunny Mama (Ruthann)
Oh Pam, great post!!! Now I have to go thru all my augers, I can use the therapy since I’m up here in the cold northeast. Yippeee
Keep the cyber shelling coming please, it helps me with this winter.
Thank you Pam so much
Mary Ann
East Granby. CT
I enlarged the picture and it looks like the boring turret is pointing to a small half-buried small lion’s paw. Maybe I’m just wishing.
Hahah CShells, it does! ….. But I do think it’s a kittens paw. Whew. Because I woulda been kickin myself for missing it
Love cybershelling! Like Beth, I’ll be heading down to Sanibel in two weeks. Such interesting bits in the photo. Wishing I could pick them up and turn them over in my hands. There’s something I’ve never seen/noticed before on the top edge of the pic; it’s about 1/3rd over from right margin. It looks like a carrier of some sort with round white buttes/mesas sticking up. I’d never notice it while shelling, but thanks for peaking my interest, Pam.
Hi! We got here(Island Inn) late Tuesday. Wednesday was cool and rainy-did not go shelling. Today it stopped raining and I went out-20 minutes later it was raining lightly again. Almost right away I found 3 white crested tellins, a purple tagelus and some alternate tellins. It supposed to be nice on Saturday- we’ll see you on the cruise. Pat
3 white crested tellins? That’s quite a welcome Pat! Good eye for spotting them -they are not easy to find.
We haven’t had rain in some time so I feel badly for u that it hasn’t been sunny but my goodness, the plants in my yard are as happy as larks.
I’m so looking forward to our cruise to Cayo costa on Saturday and to meet you!
Could you identify my shell for me please?
Great blog I loved reading it…thanks ;) I love to see the sea shells on the sea shore! Could you sell me some of your sea shells? 🐚 for those sea shells I adore! :)