Florida Shelling Sanibel Lighthouse Beach at Low Tide. Fossils, shells and critters oh my!

hello beach friends today i'm going to take you to a beach we've never shelled at before the sanibel lighthouse beach we're going to find two really squishy critters i've never seen before a sea star and of course we're going to find some shells including some fossilized shells that are over a million years old let's go check out the beach [Music] [Applause] [Music] and you'll see that the lighthouse is all decorated for the holidays and you see the moon in the background there still is up we're out quite early on this brisk morning a little chilly i wasn't the only one who got the memo that the tide was going to be low so there's quite a few other shellers out there with me all hoping to find some good stuff and i'm going to start off with a relatively basic atlantic cockle and we have a florida fighting he's a little bit beat up a little worse for wear the birds are having a great time oh yeah they were loving it as for me i'm looking for some shells got this hinged disc docemia it's a lovely little shell what do we got here oh a tulip what all right somebody claimed it before me that's probably one of those long wristed hermit crabs so we'll just admire the show we can't keep and put it back but what do we got here another banded tulip that i can keep yay no critters i chuck that good that's a fabulous little shell what do we got here all right definitely a keeper because there's a shell jammed in there that is a juvenile florida fighting cool zigzag pattern can't resist those olives gotta have yep i'm giving it the old gloss test make sure it's nice and shiny it's got its point it almost looked like a crown conch but that is a beat up juvenile florida fighting conch oh another olive oh and he's kind of stained that dark color i kind of like that oh look at this little guy just kind of bobbing around this is a short spined c star these guys are related to sea cucumbers and sea urchins i know a lot of people call them starfish but they're not related to fish in any way and scientists always refer to these guys as sea stars not starfish so we'll just check them out put them back where we found them off you go all right what else we got all right another florida fighting conch oh he's real beat up yeah leave them for somebody else so that's the sun sun hasn't quite come up yet i said the birds are really happy i'm still really chilly but still hoping i'll find something good what do we get a calico scallop sanibel always always has those guys always and a twofer looks like i'm picking up two shells two paper figs that guy's pretty nice it's not perfect but he's pretty okay um this guy's not quite as nice barnacles and mostly the discoloration i don't think i'm gonna be able to do anything with so i'm leaving for somebody else oh big old piece of a tulip oh well keep looking here we have a juvenile little tiny florida fighting conch and keep that guy so that's the moon the moon is still up and there are definitely other shellers on the beach i was not alone that little tide pool you see there i'm going to check that out in a little while but for now can't resist thinking there might be something in the water for me looks like an angel well most of an angel wing it is an angel wing just he's pretty beat up so we'll leave them what do we got here it looks like a hinged yep a hinged sunray venus i really like when these guys are black oh that's really cool so that guy is a keeper now this guy that looks like a pickle this is a sea cucumber i think it is a striped green c cucumber again it's related to sea stars and sea urchins and is squishy and weird looking so that is a critter they are kind of interesting i don't know all that much about them but hopefully uh i'll find another one one of these days and learn a little bit more here we have just a juvenile florida fighting conch oh and an olive oh i wish it was a golden olive that shot would have been perfect but it's just a regular lettered olive complete with shells all jammed in there another florida fighting conch he's kind of chewed up and broken no i yeah now that lady she's wearing a coat she is smart she's wearing a hat and like a down coat that goes to like her knees so that lady smart me not so much all right this we have almost all of an apple mirex he's a little chewed up but that's all right it's still for almost all intent and purposes intact i'm gonna keep him now look at this squishy guy this is a sandy skinned tunicate these guys filter sea water and eat suspended bacteria so they help keep the water clean thanks guy and what do we got here this is a fabulous true tulip isn't that pretty it's got a little little rock or a little shell or something in there we'll just kind of dispel that oh that's a great find really happy with that and then we have we have one that is not even close to being a keeper but we figure we'll just check them out a little bit and put them back looks like another paper figure he's kind of beat up too so we'll probably leave him all right another florida fighting conk yeah that's a keeper he's real cool with those zigzags that's kind of a cool shell and this was like shelling in chocolate milk it wasn't really easy i guess it's not terrible but it wasn't perfectly clear and i'm staying in the water because there ain't that much on the beach so i figure it's going to be my best shot of finding stuff another florida fighting and there was like a like a stick or something in there i was really at first concerned it was a critter but uh first do the inspection and kind of give it a wash see if anything happens and i just held on to him for a little while that's just like a stick or something so that was a keeper show woohoo oh a little nutmeg a little spirally guy and a little seraph it's a fine little shell looks like another olive yep another letter to olive give it the old gloss test looks like you passed the mustard so i'm going to take him home and sometimes when it's slow i'll stop and slow down and maybe check out some things i ordinarily wouldn't check out those bubble shells are always around here we have a cone almost no color but still i'm going to keep them because that's the kind of day i'm having not all that much there so now i'm in the tide pool yeah i should have known better so i figured i'd come up here and other sellers had already been here but i figured it couldn't hurt let me just poke around right see what we find looks like a florida finding all right he's kind of cool i like that guy no critters no giant buried shells bummer i got a scallop and a pair welk that has seen better days and on second thought i figured i'd better check that guy out because i do like the ones that are that color but he's kind of worn down so we'll just leave him and i beat up i think there was a one yeah it was a florida a lightning milk okay that is a little tiny paper fig he's pretty intact with a little bit of spots on him and here we have a lace muric's that has been kind of greened up by some algae and sea grass and whatnot so check them out and leave them now here we have a big old sand dollar alive and healthy this is a five hole keyhole sand dollar oh man that's beautiful he's really big so we'll make sure that he just makes its way back there to get bigger here we have a little crowned conch wee little thing nice color and this guy this is a cut ribbed arc i don't pay all that much attention to these kind of shells and i think i'm going to start because these are very very very common and i want you guys to know what you're finding if you do come down here here we have a real beat up apple mirex gonna leave him and another paper fig all right he's kind of cool looks like he's got a pinhole in them yeah he does but i don't care i'm still going to keep that guy because he is pretty and he's not chipped or anything i can live with a little pinhole yay so the sun is now pretty much up although it didn't really get much warmer but uh i'm in it for the long haul and it's kind of slow for me this beach never gives me good stuff but i think i'm doing okay all things considered all right got this little juvenile horse all right so i did get a horse i don't know that that's exactly what i was looking for but i did get one and a big old angel wing all right we'll take that that's beautiful so there was nothing going on the beach not much going on in the tide pool i honestly you know we did okay i got that that true tulip which was real pretty but that was going to kind of wrap up our time here but we weren't quite done yet on the way home we decided to stop at the causeway because the tide was still very very low and it was definitely going to expose more things that we ordinarily wouldn't be able to see so we thought let's just stop and see what we find over here wasn't really expecting much but i have heard that people have gotten the horse conchs and whatnot over here so might as well try right so it looks like i got myself a novelist florida fighting conch who knows how old that guy is and another one another knobless one kind of old and discolored now this guy now we're going to talk about something cool this is a fossil of a mud snail related to a serif that's its name i'm not even going to try to pronounce that now these guys lived in the shallow sea that covered southern florida between one to two million years ago but believe it or not they're actually kind of common fossils from old phosphate pits across south florida have been trucked all over in bulk so this show was probably one of the shows just dumped here for the parking lot area i still thought it was kind of cool so i definitely wanted to share looks like we found some other beat up things again these are all that's a shark eye um all discolored kind of bleached from all of the uh the color that it would have but i kind of like them i mean not all of them because they're just they're old and some of them have all sorts of stuff kind of jammed in there but there were shells there i'm going to probably keep that guy though i think he's kind of cool and plus it's an olive you know speaking of olives there's another one now he's not in terrible shape so there's some shells here but definitely you're going to do better off going to one of the the proper beaches i mean it's just kind of neat this is more of a beach combing exercise than anything else not so much shelling but i was interested just to kind of see what was washing up on the beaches over here that's just an oyster it looks like a giant kitten paw and this i think is a land snail i don't know why i couldn't quite figure out what it was but for whatever reason i'm really feeling like that's some sort of land snail so there's some other different things over here on the causeway that was worth checking out another now that's a crown and that stuff jammed in it that's like cement so that's another discolored weird old shell now we're going to talk about something that's kind of cool now these abnormally dark gray and these bluish isn't that look at this guy how cool is that that results from these shells being buried in sand or mud with levels of low oxygen so what happens is the trace amounts of iron that's in the shell will combine with sulfur to form iron sulfide which acts as a dye staining the shells with unusually dark hues a lot of times they're black sometimes they're blue i just think they're really cool and i'm definitely keeping that guy oh yeah he's super neat and this guy believe it or not that is a tulip i bleached him and he turned out just fine so i'm glad that i held on to him and at least give it a shot so the green definitely can be tackled with bleach and this looks like another cut ribbed arc again i want to start paying more attention to those guys we're going to learn all sorts of new stuff and then i couldn't resist because it's a little spiky it's discolored it's a spiny jewel box so this was the haul it was a rather small i still had a good time it was freezing though um so we found a couple worms now couple scallops those paper figs i like those dark shells those were really cool those were fun and the true tulip look at how different it looks at the banded tulip next to it they definitely are a little different and those other weird colored snails and whatnot i found or the shelves rather the hinged sunray venus and those in the fossils those were kind of cool so learn something new that's always a good time right so i have been doing lots of shelling and i will be seeing you again soon although i have something special planned for next week so be sure to subscribe please if you wouldn't mind hitting that like button i would appreciate that as well and i'll see you again real soon