Valentine's Day and Shell Comparisons

Happy Valentine's Day everyone!!!!!!! I hope that everyone eats lots of chocolate, gets lots of flowers, hugs, teddy bears and balloons. In the mean while though, here is a heart from the shelling world:

 

 

Here is a heart made of False Angel Wings! I found a ton of these at Oak Island, NC in August of 2013. They were all over the beach!

 

Here's two of my bigger False Angel Wings. False Angel Wings can be found boring into waterlogged, rotting wood.

 

Here's a close-up. And yes, this shell is resembles members of the Angel Wing family, but it itself is not in that family.

 

And here's a picture of two of my Angel Wings. These shells are a well-known collector's items (obviously :D- they are sooo beautiful!). They are common on the West Coast of Florida where they can often be found burrowing in as deep as 2 feet of mud. They are also edible and used to be sold in markets throughout Cuba!

 

Here's a close-up of the Angel Wing. Angel wings live with most of their bodies outside of their shells.

 

And here is a comparison between the Angel Wing ( left) and False Angel Wing (right). As you can see, the first difference is their size- the Angel Wing is much bigger.

 

Here's another close-up. While the False Angel Wing has slightly raised, continuous ridges on its shell, the true Angel Wing has lines of raised knobs along its shell. Also, if you look closely at the bottom of both shells, you can see that the Angel Wing has several fold-like creases that flare out.

 

And another comparison that I wanted to show you is the Disk versus the Elegant Dosinia. Here are two specimens of the Disk Dosinia. This species is apparently not found living on open beaches, but only in bays or estuaries where it burrows in lose sand.

 

And here is the Elegant Dosinia.

 

Dosinias have very strong hinge ligaments that prevent the two shells of the bivalve from falling apart- you can find attached Dosinia shells all over the beaches, especially on Sanibel.

 

And here is the Disk Dosinia (on top) and the Elegant Dosinia (on the bottom). Despite the size difference, don't be fooled. The shells reach about the same size when adults, the specimens I have are just different ages probably.

 

And here's another picture. I know that it's a bit hard to see. But the Elegant Dosinia (on the bottom) has raised concentric ridges on its shell, while the Disk Dosinia (top) has a flatter shell with less pronounced ridges. Check the above photos of the individual shells, and the ridges should be easier to see. However, if you can't see it, don't be upset, I only realized how different the two shells were after I went through my collection and compared all the shells.

 

I gotta go now, but I hope that you learned a bunch from today's post. I know that I sure do, when I start researching shell!

Yaroshelllava :D