Shells We Found

Angel wings are free swimmers when they are young. As adults they spend their life burrowed in clay, wood, sandy mud, or even solid rock. They are excellent diggers. They twist their hard, rasp like surface back and forth forcing their way down. They may burrow down as much as 10"-12" in sandy mud.

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The Atlantic cockle enjoys sandy shores. The cockle has very short siphons; therefore, it will burrow only the length of its shell.

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The coquina is sometimes called the butterfly because when you find it on the beach it looks like a butterfly. These tiny animals burrow the same as clams. You can find them in many colors such as pink, salmon, lavender, white and even with purplish radiating lines. The colors fade the longer they are in the sunlight.

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The female oyster produces millions of eggs, which is a good thing because only one in one million grows to be a full sized adult. These bivalves have many enemies. Fish eat the eggs and spats (babies). Crabs, starfish, whelks, rays, and drills (tiny snails) eat the adults.

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The rough, spiny outside surface of the pen shell helps it stay buried in mud or sand. The small foot located at the narrow end, spins byssal threads. It attaches this thin thread to small stones or broken shells below the surface.

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We could learn a lot about mining from watching razor clams. This bivalve squirts jets of water into a hole and then pulls itself in--just like the hydraulic mining of humans.

Although many bivalves dig or bore into the sand, clay or mud, the scallop does not. This colorful swimmer quickly closes its shells which forces water through the hinge. It then zig zags around through the water. It can see where it is going because it has a row of about 30 bluish eyes on the edge of its mantle.

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The slipper limpet is active until it is about two years old when it finds a place to stay for life. Females produce capsules that have 70-100 eggs.

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Lightening whelks are the state shell of Texas. This carnivorous gastropod likes to eat shellfish, dead fish, and oysters. The female lays numerous eggs inside leathery egg capsules. These eggs stay in the capsules until they can crawl.

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Barnacle larva are called nauplis. It looks like a microscopic spider with its one eye, and 3 pairs of spidery appendages. It looks like this for only 1-2 days. Then it turns into the next larval stage - the cypris. It now has two eyes, legs, and a thin bivalve shell. It is a very poor swimmer, so it is moved by the tides and currents. It uses an antennae to find a permanent home. This home can be stationary or mobile. That is it can be something that doesn't move like a rock or something that does move like a whale. A barnacle really doesn't care. It squeezed glue from its head to cement it in place. It loses its bivalve shell and grows a volcano shape shell.

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