Shellart on Sunday

Today I had a free day so I decided that I do some shellart, that I had been wanting to do for the past week or so.
I started with some shell plaques...

 

 

These one was my first one today. I took a piece of cardboard and used a hot glue gun to cover it in pretty origami paper and then to glue on shells. I have a supply of "craft shells" for projects like this. My "craft shells" are complete and broken, old and new, but they are slightly worse than my "collection shells" (the ones that I organize into boxes to keep), so they go into my craft supply.

 

Then, I made a second shell plaque. I started the same way as the first one. Then I made the flower in the center out of Disk Dosinias and a Chestnut Turban. The yellow chain at the top of the plaque is a Whelk Egg Casing.

 

After my two shell plaques, I got into a holiday mood. So I made this Christmas Shell Tree out of various Ark shells and a Scallop on top. Lastly, I made sparkly balls out of silver and gold paper to be ornaments.

 

Having completed my Christmas Shell Tree, I made some shellangels. I used Mossy Arks as the wings and yard for the red bows.

 

And now, I want to show you guys some other shell crafts that I did about two weeks ago.

 

First, I crocheted this Pearl Oyster or Clam! Did you know that not only oysters and clams can make pearls, but conchs and whelks too? Yes, they can!

 

And also, I made this print of a Horse Conch. Then I decided that the white edges of the paper looked bare, so I made a shellframe!

 

I hope that my shellart will give you guys some shellspiration! Have fun!

Yaroshelllava :D

My Late Turkey Day Post

Happy Thanksgiving y'all!
I didn't post yesterday because I was with my family nad friedns eating a ton of good food. And I'm sure all of you guys were doing the same thing.
But no, I want to do my "Turkey Day " post.

I will start by showing you some Turkey Wings!!!!

 

The generic Thanksgiving shell! Turkey Wings are also called Zebra Arks. In the Caribbean thousands of tons of these beautiful mollusks are harvested to be canned and eaten each year. This is not goo at all (obviously)! Especially because Turkey Wings are very important in their ecosystems and food webs as prey, plankton feeders and substrate for benthic animals.

 

And this here is the Mossy Ark. Looks almost identical to the Turkey Wing, right? But, they are two different shells, even if they do belong to the same genus: Arca.

 

And here are the two shells side by side. Mossy Arks on the left, Turkey Wings on the right. From the front, you can see how different these shells look in terms of coloring. The Turkey Wing has distinct, precise brown and white stripes. The Mossy Ark, on the other hand, is often just a mottled whitish brown.

 

And now, from the back. This might be a bit hard to see, but another way to tell the shells apart is by looking at the top rim of their shells. The Mossy Arks (on the right again) have a very curvy rim- compromised of two curves. The top rim of the Turkey Wings, however, is pretty straight.

 

And now, I wanted to show the distinctions between two different shells.

 

I always thought that this was a regular Common Atlantic Auger, just a freak one. However, it is a Gray Atlantic Auger. These mollusks are active hunters and they prey on worms. They can slide really fast (for a snail, :D ) on their foot. When they reach a worm they lunge and stab it with its poisonous, radular tooth.

 

And now this is a Common American Auger. They are hunters and prey on worms too.

And now for a comparison of the two species...

 

The Common American Auger (left) and Gray Atlantic Auger (right). You can see that the Gray Atlantic Auger is much smoother, without the many small ridges that the Common American Auger has.

 

Finally the Common American Auger is lighter colored. It is orange, yellow and chestnut, while the Gray Atlantic Auger is darker brown and slightly purple.

 

Well, that's it for today guys! Gotta go!

See y'all,

Lava of Ocean Dawn :D

Exotic Shells Part 2

Hi guys!
It's gonna be a short post, but I wanted to show you some of the other exotic shells that I have identified.

 

The Magellanic Triton. This shells can be found in the south of South America, south of Australia and New Zealand. A pretty big range, if you ask me!

 

This shell here is a faded Giant Knobbed Cerith. These guys live in the Indo-Pacific. The lip of the shell in adult specimens is usually white and thick.

 

 

A Map Cowrie. Also from the Indo-Pacific. They live under coral. I can see how the shell got its name from the many, distinct markings. To me they look a lot like hieroglyphics!

 

Lastly, some more shells that my anonymous donor gave me. These however are far from exotic, they can be found right in Maryland. These are Atlantic Bay Scallops. Once they were extensively gathered and became scarce due to habitat loss and overfishing. I have found plenty of these on Assateague Island, however.

 

And now, I gotta run!!!!!!!

 

Bye!

Yaroshelllava :D

 

Identification of some Exotic Shells

Howdy guys!!!!
As promised, I started IDing some of the shells that the anonymous donor gave me. Most of them are from the Indo-Pacific.
This was much harder, as I'm not familiar AT ALL with shells from that side of the world. But, who doesn't love a challenge? We all do. :D

Let's start with the cowries....

 

 

First up, the Eyed Cowrie. These guys are from the Indo-Pacific and their habitat consists of coral reefs. Named for the dots and splotches on the top of the shell that resemble "eyes".

 

 

The Tiger Cowrie also lives in the Indo Pacific. They are fairly common and well-known. You can find lots of these in tourist shops. If you look closely, you can see a faint, chestnut-colored line at the right of that shell. This line indicates where the edges of the mollusks mantle meet.

 

I always thought that the bottom side of Cowrie shells looked like a grin. Although, as you saw this shell is spotted, all-black specimens have been found. As well as giant specimens that were bigger than the standard 3.5 inch size.

 

Moving on from cowries, we come to the Spider Conch. This is the Arthritic Spider Conch that is found in East Africa. It resembles the Chiragra Spider Conch of the Indo- Pacific but is much smaller. It's 6 inches long, while the Chiragra Spider Conch is 10 inches long.

 

These mollusks also inhabit coral reefs. They are found fairly often.

 

Another Conch- yet this one can be found closer to home. The West Indian Fighting Conch. It looks similar to the Florida Fighting Conch as you will see in the next picture, but it is found further south, in the Carribean.

A comparison of the Fighting Conch. Florida Fighting Conch on the top, West Indian Fighting Conch on the bottom.

 

As you can see, the main difference is the whorls or knobs. The knobs of the West Indian Fighting Conch are much sharper and more pronounced, than of its Floridian counterpart.

 

The Clear Sundial. This mollusk is found in the Indo-Pacific. It has a low spire, and a flat base. It lives in the sand in shallow water.

 

And that is all for today, my friends. I have many more shells and fossils that I need to ID. So I need to go and get that done.

 

See y'all later,

Yaroshelllava :D

Cleaning you Shells

 

 

Hi guys! So I'm gonna do a quick post about cleaning your seashells today. I want to apologize beforehand for the first three pictures- I took screenshots from my Instagram because I couldn't find the original images.

Oh and by the way, I update my Instagram way more often than this blog because it's quicker to do, so if you want a daily fix of shells, you can follow my Instagram.

 

But let's move on from social networks and get back to shells!!!!!!!!!

 

 

So in order to clean your shells you should soak them overnight in a 7/8 water and 1/8 bleach bath. I used the regular laundry.

 

 

You put your shells into the bleach bath and let them soak for 24 hrs. Then, using a small screwdriver, you can get all the barnacles of.

Now, as you can see from the two photos above, I put ALOT of shells into the two containers, so the bleach bath did not really soak through the upper shell layers into the lower ones and they were not as clean and nice, as the ones on top. So you might want to clean your shells in smaller portions.

 

 

Here's a photo of one of my monster Florida Fighting Conchs. The bleach bath cleaned up the color nicely and also softened up the barnacles quite a bit. I got all of the barnacles off, after taking the "after" photo.

 

I wanna warn you all, that sea urchins should not be put in bleach baths, nor old crab claws. This beach bling will get soaked and fall apart. Same with operculums.

Also, I found that my Chestnut Turbans became bleak after the bleach baths, not nice and cleaned up, so maybe I should have put them in for a shorter time.

 

After you're done with the bleach, you can pour it in the toilet. Some people use muriatic acid (Which I understand is a form of hydrochloric acid) to make their shells even brighter and more colorful after the bleach bath. But I don't, because one- HCl is dangerous stuff to have around the house, and two- the muriatic acid apparently harms the shell by destroying some of the calcium carbonate that makes up the shell. However, muriatic acid does bring dramatic and beautiful results, so it's up to you whether you want to use it or not.

 

And that's all I have to say on the subject of shell cleaning.

Next, I want to show you my one, and probably only, freak shell!!!!!!!!

 

 

It's a Scotch Bonnet- and notice that it has not one lip but two!!! Woaaahhh! Cool, huh?

 

Here's another view of the same shell. I have no idea how this guy got its deformity, but it adds to the shells mystery... I found this Scotch Bonnet in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

 

And here is a photo of a perfect, not deformed Scotch Bonnet. I found this one in Fort Lauderdale too. These guys are members of the Helmet family and range from North Carolina to Texas and Brazil. They feed on sea urchins and sand dollars.

I've always loved these adorable shells, and look forward to finding more.

 

And this brings us to an end of another entry. But first, I wanted to tell you, that one of my blog reader (this means you guys!!!!) sent me a bag of exotic shells and fossils. I am in the process of identifying and researching them and I hope to finish doing that soon and posting several more entries for you guys. So thanks very much for that unknown donor, who wished to remain anonymous!!!!!!

 

Bye y'all,

Lava of Ocean Dawn :D

 

P.S. If you guys want me to do a post on a specific shell topic, please comment below and I will try to fulfill your wishes. :)

It's Murex Monday!!!!!!!

Hey y'all!
Today will be a short but educational post because I don't have much time.
As you can guess by the title, it's gonna be about MUREXES!!!!!

Featured will be the Apple Murex, the Lace Murex, and the Cabrit's Murex.
Let's get started then!

 

First is the Florida Lace Murex. All the Lace Murices that I have found were on Sanibel Island. The most common coloring for these shells is white with a pinkish nose. Darker, tan or light brown murices are more rare. This is considered to be the most common Florida Murex, but I have found more Apple Murices than Lacies.

Also, these guys are so closely related to the West Indian Lace Murex, that although they are listed as two separate species, the Florida Lace Murex might actually be a subspecies of the West Indian Lace Murex.

 

Next is the Apple Murex- all these have also been found on Sanibel Island.

 

These guys prey exclusively on the common Eastern Oyster. They bore holes in the oyster shells to get at the mollusk's meat.

 

The Cabrit's Murex is pretty rare to be found on Sanibel Island. I think that it's more common the Florida's East Coast. This guy was found in Fort Lauderdale, FL.

 

The Cabrit's Murex was named in honor of a French shell collector from the mid-1800's.

And here is a comparison of all three murices (from left to right): the Cabrit's Murex, the Lace Murex and the Apple Murex.

 

All murices are really pretty and a favorite of mine as a sheller, I hope you guys like them too!

 

Bye now,

Yaroshelllava :D

The Shells of Maryland

 

Third day in a row!!!!!! I'm on a roll!

Ok, hi people!

Today decided to scale back a little. Instead of talking about all the great, colorful , big and exotic shells from Florida, especially Sanibel, or North Carolina, I want to introduce some shells that can be found in Maryland.

 

Why Maryland, because that is where I live at this moment. Now you might know that I'm Russian, but because my parents have jobs in America right now, I live in MD.

 

Let's get started then!

 

 

I am using this shell ID book, which I bought about six years ago on Assateague Island to ID my shells and get all my background info  for my MD shells.

 

Now, all these shells can be found not only in Maryland, there range extends North or South on the East Coast too. That''s why, you, my reader, might have found these same shells but not in MD, but say in New York.

 

 

First is the Three-Lined Nassa. This little guy ranges all the way from Canada to NE Florida. They are most abundant on intertidal flats where they feed as scavengers.

 

 

The Bruised Nassa is related to the Three-lined Nassa. But it is slightly thicker in shape. They have been observed feeding on the egg cases of worms, so they might be carnivores.

 

The Knobbed Whelk looks similar to the Lightning Whelk but it is a right-hand shell, whereas the Lightning Whelk is one of the rare left-handed univalves.

You can see my post on right-handed versus left-handed mollusks in one of my February 2014 posts called "The Evolution of a Name". (Sorry, but I don't know how to attach

a link to a word, yet).

 

The Channeled Whelk looks similar to other whelks, but as you can see its little knobs or whorls are flattened. I found both this guy and the Knobbed Whelk in the photo above on Assateague Island.

 

This was a surprise! I didn't know that the Angulate Wentletrap's range extends up North all the way to New York. I always thought of this as a southern shell.

Ah well, we all learn as long as we live...

 

The Shark Eye, a favorite of mine! It gets it's name from the eye-like tip of the shell, on this one it's blue. These snails prey on Clam Shells and Coquina Shells.

 

This is the underside of the same Shark Eye, and you can see the brown button-like pad that covers the umbilicus of the shell. It is a called a callus.

 

This photo is a little "busy", but the main part are the three "tear-shaped" shells in the senter of the photo which form a line. They are Slipper Shells. These guys lack Operculums ( the "trap doors" that protect the body of the snail when a mollusk "closes" itself).

 

 

Blue Mussels...These guys can be found on both coasts- from the Arctic to South Carolina, and from Alaska to Baja California. Talk about widespread!

 

Another favorite- the delicate Angel Wing! You can see how it gets its name immediately.

These guys are common on the West Coast of Florida ( that means Sanibel!!!!!!), but they extend all the way up North to South Massachusetts.

 

Well guys, time presses, and I gotta go.

Let's hope that I can post again soon!

 

Bye, Yaroshelllava :D