Tuesday Throwbacks

Hi guys!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I'm so sorry that I haven't written for the last coupe of weeks!!!!!!!!!!
Really sorry!!!!!!!!!!!!
What with school and extracurricular activities, I just haven't had the time.
But here's a nice post to (sort of) make up for it.

So for today, I decided to switch things up a bit and make it "Throwback Tuesday" instead of "Thursday".
And I'm going to show you more photos from March of last year at Sanibel, FL

 

 

This is a skate egg. Skates are related to sharks, they are both from the class Chondrichthys and are related to other fish with skeletons of cartilage, like themselves. 

Skate eggs are also called "mermaids purses" which I always thought was a cute name. :D

 

 A Lettered Olive!!!!!!!!!! I love these shells. This one, as you can see, was alive so I just left it to go on its own merry way.
Over the years I have found quite a few of these shell, but have given them away to friends and family. I found this out, because a few days ago, I was going over my shell collection and realized that I had maybe only two or three Lettered Olives!!!
OH NO!!!! I'm definitely gonna be on the look out for these when I next go to the beach.

                                             A Sand Dollar. Not sure what species though.

                                                                     
                                                         This here, a Lightning Whelk.
                                                              And how can you tell?
                               That's right! By the fact that the shells opening is to the left side.
             I hope that you remember, from one of my previous posts, what right-handed and left-                                                               handed shells are. :D

A Lightning Whelk shell with a Hermit Crab inside.

 

 And finally, a Lined Sea Star. Sea Stars have many, many tiny tube feet on their undersides that help them move. The tube feet are helped by the star's water-vascular system that provides hydraulic pressure. On the picture here, you can see the several tracks that the sea star left on the sand.
There were lots and lots of these cute Echinoderms on the beaches at low tide.

 

Well, as you mighta guessed, I gotta go ( again)! :D

 

See ya soon,

Lava of Ocean Dawn :D

Fantasizing about Florida.

Last year, March 2013, my family and I went to Sanibel Island, FL for a week of vacation.
Sanibel Island is the #1 spot for shelling in the US! Now you can see why I desperately wanted to go there.
So, after several years of trying to persuade my parents to take us there, they agreed.
That week in March was heavenly!
I loved the island, the beaches, the biking trails and most importantly....
THE SHELLS!!!!!
Here's a glimpse of some of the shells that I collected:

You can see the HUGE Saw-toothed Pen Shell, the Atlantic Giant Cockles, the Whelks and the Banded Tulips.

The rest of the shells I just kind of heaped there because I'm not really neat... ;D

Anyway, this was my second time in Florida because in November 2012 we had gone to Fort Lauderdale.

And now!!!!!! We're going to Sanibel AGAIN!!!!!!!!!

Yep, in a little over a month I'll be on the darling island again.

I can't wait!

But in the mean time, I want to show you guys some of my pictures from last year....

 

This guy here is a live Florida Fighting Conch. The reason for their name is their pretty aggressive personality. When I was holding this guy he kept hitting me with his foot and claw-like operculum (trap-door, you can see it at the bottom of the picture). But I managed to get this cute photo of him before returning him to the water. :D

 

Now this guy here is burrowing into the sand, but I don't think he ever got any further. Out of the hundreds of live Florida Fighting Conchs that were strewn on the beach at low tide, lots of them were in the position that you see here.

 

Next is the Florida Horse Conch. This, here shell is the largest gastropod in North America and the second largest ( after the Australian Trumpet) in the world. This shell has been on my "To Find" list ever since I first saw it in a shell book, but I only got to find one last year.

But it was alive, so I put it back in the water.

On Sanibel Island it's illegal to take home any live shell, sea urchin, sand dollar or sea star. But even if it was legal, I would have never taken this guy home.

I 'd much rather it stay alive.

So this year I'm hoping for a nice big empty Horse Conch to take home.

 

 

                                             This is another picture of the same shell. Right after I took this photo, the Conch spit water at my camera. Thankfully, the camera was fine. Horse Conchs hunt on other large gastropods such as Tulip Shells and Lightning Whelks. They get their prey by grabbing the other mollusks operculum and holding it tightly while eating.

 

Well that's it for today. I gotta go now.

But don't be sad, there will definitely be more posts on Sanibel Island in the next few days.

 

See ya soon!

Lava of Ocean Dawn :D