I identify everything I find on the beach. And there was a lot of stuff to ID!

Hello beach friends. This is one of my favorite beaches to come out and beach comb, Fort Myers Beach, and today already feels like it's going to be a good one. There's just one thing to work around, a wee bit of seaweed that has invaded Fort Myers Beach. So when I got here this morning it was clear I was dealing with a different kind of weather than usual. The air was thick with fog and the condensation for a moment made it look like it was snowing. This is about as close as we get to blizzard conditions down here in South Florida. Now with the seaweed pushed up all along to the water line and scattered all over the beach it might make things a little more challenging and that's okay. I am definitely up for the challenge. Okay the first thing of interest I see is this moon snail egg collar. So the moon snail mommies kind of mix sand and like a gelatin and their eggs into this collar and that eventually will develop and the little critters will become larvae and kind of swim around and do their thing. Now we are going to find amazing things on the beach today. I know it looks like it might be a little scary but do not worry there is plenty of fantastic things to look at and we're going to talk about some cones in a little bit. So if you're ready to see what all is in between the seaweed today let's go to the beach. So for reference if you had watched last week's video this is the day after. Now this shell I might not have ordinarily have shown you because there's a little bit of the animal left in the shell. So something snacked on this poor abandoned tulip and there's a little bit left in there. That shell if I took it home I would bury it. I would put it and let the ants much like that's how these shells get cleaned up at the beach. Something is always eating and repurposing everything so something like that I would bury and let the ants take care of it. That fighting conch oh it's so pretty. Yep it's an adult and there's a bunch of juveniles in my hand as well but fantastic. Okay yeah it's a mess. I love a mess though. Mess is good. This is not really great. I don't see these often. These are Asian green mussels. They are invasive so yeah not a great sign. They really mess things up for ships and waterways and all sorts of yeah they're not supposed to be here but they are. Luckily I don't see them that often actually so those are Asian green mussels. The common nutmeg. Now we're at Fort Myers Beach and these shells do tend to show up so let's learn the scientific name Cancelaria reticulata. So the nutmeg is the Cancelaria reticulata. The pear whelk is the Phulgaropsis pyroloides. So those are the two I'm trying to teach myself right now. That's a shark eye. I don't know what the scientific name of that is yet. I will get there. That's the way that things work. A little little bit at a time. It kind of builds up. So that is a shark eye moon snail. Oh there's a Phulgaropsis pyroloides. With a name like that I think I'm going to stick to pear whelk but I still want to learn it. Look at that. Now I did think that was alive that's why I kind of picked it up the way I did with the bright color like that. I did expect um the animal to be in there but lucky it's empty because all sorts of other critters cleaned it out for us. Thank you very much beach critters. There's a lettered olive. What else caught my eye? Okay a little fighting conch. It's not my favorite to be out here with the headlamp but just that's just kind of the way the day worked out for me. I wanted to catch the low tide or be here a little bit before the low tide came. So there's a nutmeg or the cancellaria reticulata. There's another. I think we'll know that by the end of this video I'll tell you that. All right there's another one. Fantastic. Yeah Fort Myers Beach and nutmegs yeah they're like peas in a pod. All right there is a Phylonotus palmum and another one of those cancellaria reticulata. There's an auger. Gorgeous auger. Packed full of sand. Great. You don't have to worry about critters or hermit crabs. Yep another olive. Actually there's a lot of olives at Fort Myers Beach too. Okay a broken ribbed cantharis. There's another cancellaria reticulata and another shark eye right. Yes another moon snail shark eye. Yeah I have a feeling there's going to be a whole bunch of nutmegs today. Not really too much of a stretch. And cones now normally I would just say that's a dusky cone and I'm going to do that this time but we are going to talk about them. Another letter amp. Still can't resist those pointy lettered olives. I have way too many. Still picking them up maybe in I don't know once 10 years goes by I'll stop. Hard to say. Yeah it's a very very foggy but at least there's these patches that I can kind of hunt. So and Fort Myers Beach does have pretty good smalls. Okay that's an empty auger. Fantastic. A florida cone. I'm not super beat up but you know it's been around the block. Florida cone and a gulf oyster trill. Those brown horizontal stripes those are the tells for me. Yeah I just picked off some of that beach stuff. And the longer the beach stuff is on it does it'll loosen up. It also kind of depends on the kind of shell which is kind of funny. Sometimes that stuff will pop off a lot easier than other times. So that's a crown conch that's been hugged by the beach many many many times. Oh hello sinister fulgur sinistrum. Yep our left-handed seashell the lightning whelk. Great great. That's a great show. They're relatively common but on a day like today that's epic. Absolutely spectacular. Here's a little bruised nasa. Darling little thing. And another one of those cancellaria reticulata. Okay so normally cones that size I just every they're all dusky cones. Well it turns out we have another shell down here called a peels cone. And to me they I can't I mean obviously from that picture I can distinguish them apart but once I was trying to figure out what that is oh man. So I do think that's a peels cone. We're right now we'll admire this lovely Florida state shell horse conch. The little ones tend to be either like kind of a bright orange or a yellow. So pretty with a little white top drill of some sort. We have yes I believe that is an Atlantic oyster drill. And that is a process of elimination because it's not the mauve mouth or the uh cantherous. So this lace myrix I was just curious like it looks a little worn to me. I do want to clean it up again just out of curiosity really. So at the end of the video I think it's going to be more of a wabi-sabi shell. We'll see we shall see. Okay another great auger yeah. And another okay. Now I'm picking them up kind of quickly. I'm gonna need to double check them though. You have a little yep you have a hermie so you have to stay here. And then anything questionable like if I can't tell I leave it. If I'm just not sure sometimes it's just beach stuff or barnacle and I just can't tell and I'm gonna leave it. Just how I roll. So yeah I like to check check my shells. Leave the critters at the beach. Yeah I'm kind of pro critter if you haven't noticed. So yeah these these appear safe or anything questionable. Yeah we're yep. Okay got a couple augers fantastic. I do like them. Oh I do like a good auger. Look at this cute little olive. Yep so that is a lettered olive. Cute little thing. Lots of little things here. All right that is a little fighting conch. Yeah yeah it's hard yeah almost no color eyes. I wouldn't say it's albino. I think well maybe I guess. It's a little Florida fighting conch. All right there's no seaweed here. Well almost no seaweed but you know what there's not a lot of shells either. What's with that? So yep just keep moseying down the beach. Clearly a very foggy day. That's okay. No sunburn for me. All right another one of those cancellaria reticulatus. Make it two. Now we can see the collumellar folds on the inside of that. So that's what those little twirly things are. That's the fancy name for the twirly things. Okay lace murix. Yeah I've been hugged by the beach a little bit. So the bigger stuff obviously sticks out easier but the small stuff can be pretty fun too. We have a all right that's a tinted cantherus. Lovely broken stuff. Yeah we're gonna find some cool there's a couple of I just really like them some of these small ones. So there we have a cone. Dust peel cone. I yeah I don't know. So here we are. So these are all of the little cones that I thought are dusky cones. And so I looked at these two side by side. Now I do think that the peel cone is on the right and then the dusky cone is on the left. But man ah. So I'm just gonna pay more attention as I move forward and see if I can try to kind of tease them apart. Let's see. There's a top snail. No confusion on that. Although there's a couple different species. That one's a jujube top snail. That is a dark cerus. Aren't they lovely? That's just about as big as they get. It's got a little siphon. A little canal. And now the the opening kind of flares out compared to the auger. So that is just a juvenile banded tulip or the centura hunteria. Cute little thing. Bubbles. Lots of bubbles. A little bit of coffee grounds. Oh my gosh. Look at this one. That's a whopper. That is a whopper of a nutmeg. Yeah and sadly I did try to clean that black stuff. It didn't come off. So spoiler. That one does keep its black stuff. Oh well. But still a very very colossal nutmeg. Another banded tulip. Delightful. I think the critters cleaned that one out for me. Thank you very much critters. And okay wow yeah pretty foggy day. So we did come at low tide. That's typically how I roll. At this point it's coming in but it was a negative tide which is why I came here in the dark because I just like to see what it does to the beach. Unfortunately today there was all that seaweed but still I feel like we're doing we're doing okay. If I had to guess this is someone else's recycling. Somebody dumped their shells here because it just feels rather random to have this alphabet cone here. So that's what I'm thinking. So the cones that I find up here tend to be more on the yellow and orange side. There's another nutmeg. Is that? Yeah I have enough. Oh there's another one. But the cones that I find down like in Key Wade and in Cayce they're very very dark like a chocolate. So it's just interesting that they tend to be different colors in the different areas. And I am not above checking out someone's discard pile. I will tell you obviously. All right there's another cone. And a I think that's a ribbed cantharis. That is a drill of questionable origin. All right there's one of those Phulgaropsis pyraloides or the pear whelk. Now this fella or gal I really liked this shell. I just wished it was completely yellow. So there is a golden olive and it's just a color variation. So theoretically that whole olive could be that yellow color but clearly it didn't really give that much effort. It was only going to give it a little bit of effort in being a golden olive. So I'm going to keep it anyway. And look the rose petal talon. Maybe they're coming back. I've been whining for a couple months now that they used to be here all the time but they were gone. Maybe they're back. Whoa that one's huge. So another really big Cancelaria reticulata. Cancelaria reticulata. Common nutmeg. That's massive. Now I thought that the Murex family of shells was my favorite but you know what? I love a good jewel box. So this is a spiny jewel box and when it creates its shell those little spikes are actually hollow and the animal creates those spikes as it's building onto its shell. I think it's fascinating. Oh I also think that shell is very very pretty. So it's a spiny jewel box. All right. Nice frilly apple Murex. Yeah its top is a little missing but otherwise very pretty. Phylonotus palmum or apple Murex. Okay yeah at least it's not completely blanketed here. There's like little pockets. Yeah in some of these areas there is. And um someone had asked it does not smell. I don't know why. It's just it's just here and eventually the tides and wind will take it away. No one's going to come and clean it up. It's just it's just a natural thing that that occurs at least here. This is a coquina. I do love a good variable coquina. They have nice strong hinges. There's another lettered olive. Yeah Fort Myers Beach and olives and me we we have a problem. So that's half of a colorful moon snail. Yeah I mean you can't obviously you can find them here but the really good condition ones I tend to find those on Kais. Oh another little coquina. But I like Fort Myers Beach just because of the pure breadth of different specimens that you can find here. And you know if the the seaweed weren't there we might be saying hi to a couple more critters but I'm not going to complain at least I'm finding really great stuff. And there is a little you know there's there's some openings here. There's possibilities. There's another cintura hunteria that does need a little bit of bleach. Oh look at the color on that one. That's beautiful. So the parawolk. Very pretty. And sometimes the undertone will be like a white on the shell versus that yellow. So we can look at these side by side. And why it just genetics what they eat. It's just the way it is sometimes. And did you see that? So this they call it a crucifix shell but technically it is the skull of a catfish. And it just kind of happens to have this look this crucifix look to it. So I'll probably hang on to that. Throw that up on my Etsy store at some point. But yeah really interesting stuff here this morning. I love Fort Myers Beach. We have another one of those parawolks. Very pretty. And an angel wing. A little bit of beach stuff and that is okay. Beach stuff can be dealt with. Whoa look at the color on that. So that's a crown conch. Oh what great color. I suspect as it gets bigger it would lose its color. I don't know I've ever seen a really big one with such great color on it. So yeah super fun. That's what I'm saying. Fort Myers Beach has so many different things. And unlike on Kais when I was finding these poor critters all dried up. This this fella just needs a little bit of hydration. So yeah you're you'll be fine. But yeah oh very messy. That's okay do like a good mess. Wow look at the color. So that is a true tulip. And I will show you that at the end of the video as well. I was really anxious to clean that up. Sometimes I'm like lately I've just been getting lazy. And if it has beach stuff I'm like meh. But that I want to see cleaned up. Okay that is a shell. I do think that that's a moth mouth drill. Yeah that's what's coming to me. Apple Myricks. Yeah your aperture is a little worse for wear. Okay so this is a striped acorn barnacle. Kind of neat. You can collect it. I just depends on my mood. I guess I just wasn't in the mood for a barnacle right then and there. Now that I would actually expect to be alive because of the color on it. But it's nope. There's a bunch of sand in there. Beautiful. Okay another one of those nutmegs. So yeah there's a bunch of great stuff here. It doesn't kind of look like it but there is. Here's another apple myricks. Yep yep. You'll get the spa treatment along with some of these other shells. Nice nice frills and everything. So the phylonotus palmum. Now again lack of seaweed. Lack of shells. And typically in the past that was a sparse area. And I would be walking toward the like the good stuff. But it's becoming apparent to me that the beach has changed. And as I keep walking there's no seaweed. And I'm not finding a whole lot. I mean I'm going to go a little bit. I'm not going to give up quite yet. But I can see the beach has definitely changed. Here's a jingle. Lovely. Or a baby's foot. Cool that's a very big one. Very very nice. Nice little jingle. Oh another one of those very pretty juvenile fighting conchs. Empty. Yeah nice. But I don't think. Yeah it's it's it's kind of thinning out a lot. So I think I'm going to go back and try my luck with the seaweed. I was having much better luck with seaweed. Let's go back. All right somebody else was recycling perhaps. Hard to say. Oh this is kind of pretty. And it feels like the perfect time for me to be quiet so you can enjoy some beach time. The sun ray venus clam. Very common for whatever reason. I just love them. Yep sometimes it'll have that like splash of melon color on the interior if it's in good shape. And they're just variable. They're all different. Look at this one. Almost no black. And I've also found them that when they've been very very yellow. So yeah I just kind of like them. Oh somebody drilled a drill hole. That's an umbo drill. So another sun ray venus clam. Oh a flat urchin. Five hole keyhole sand dollar. Now the hole on the back that's where its mouth would have been. Yep it's a little five hole keyhole sand dollar. Love them. Another top snail of the jujube variety. Terrific. Yeah lately I've been finding live ones and hermit crabs in them which is kind of crazy. But it's just an empty top snail. So I don't have a whole lot of competition. Me and a couple of kids are out here. Frankly I feel like a giant kid when I come out here. Oh another cantilaria reticulata. But it's missing its top. I can get picky at this point. Okay a little Atlantic giant cockle. Another juvenile fighting conch. There is a ton of stuff here. It's just on the small side. Okay some treasures come in small packages. Okay here okay here we have a tinted cantherus. Sometimes they'll be bumpy sometimes they're not. I prefer them if they're bumpy. There's probably a technical word for that. We're just gonna go with bumpy for now. I love these. So this is a pitted murrex. It's twirly. So they they very not very small but they're pretty small. They don't get all that big. And they twist. They kind of have a twist to them. I just love them. So it's called a pitted murrex. Love finding them. Yep fantastic. That's a great find. And oh a sharp ribbed drill. I like these too. Again don't know why. Just yep the pitted murrex and the sharp ribbed drill are little ones that I really enjoy finding. That's a little bruised nasa. It's fine. I just don't enjoy it as much as the other ones. So yep and they're more common. I guess that's just how that works. It's a gulf oyster drill. You can tell by those brown stripes on it. And okay a broken apple murrex. That's another sharp ribbed drill. Awesome. I find them broken sometimes too which is a heartbreaker. Nope that one's great. Oh yeah awesome awesome little seashell. Along with a little drill. Frankly they're both drills aren't they now. Now the cancellaria reticulata can come albino. I have found them. This is not an albino. It's just a reminder that they they could be. There was a little bit of color on that. What else? Oh that is another. It's kind of weird. That is a ribbed cantharis. It's kind of got a funny shape to it. But that's what that is. Lots of opportunities. Oh another one of those vulgaropsis pyroloides or pyro. Yeah thwack. And when I do that it says it's called a thwack. Yep needs a little bit of bleach. That will clean up gorgeous. Oh the carapace. So these are from calico box crabs. And they're the carapace. Sometimes as you can tell they're a little bit different colors. I love the animals but unfortunately they've expired and left their carapaces behind. So that is a coquina and again a variable coquina. They're a very important food source the coquinas. These creatures kind of depend on each other and they don't exactly go down to the stop and shop and pick up their food. It's a snail eat snail or mollusk eat mollusk kind of a situation here. That is a buttercup lucine. It's rather buttery. Yep delightful. I love how bulbous it is. I love that shape. Now this is like albinistic. It's a florida prickly cockle but it's not full color. It just got a blush of color. I think it's gorgeous. Oh yeah so it's albinistic. You kind of find that with some of the shells. I happen to kind of love those albino shells and albinistic ones. Very pretty. Okay we have our standard calico scallop. Yep yep that is a pretty standard seashell. We don't get too many different species of scallops. That's one of them. All right all right that is a banded tulip with like a little something something in there. Oh that's a banded tulip with a creature in there. So the banded tulip is alive. I do want to check out this shark eye. Okay all right all right we're gonna give a couple of these friends a little lift down to the water. There you go and then I want to check out this shark eye. Oh you're great. There's some beach stuff on you but that's okay. I suspect with a dental pick and some bleach that's a false shark eye. Terrific. I do like that size. I just like them. I just like them. Okay there's a there's our state shell that's also kind of a wabi-sabi-ish. It's been hugged by the beach. I think I don't like broken ones but if they're kind of worn a certain way they can be appealing. Now that's lovely. It's kind of reminding me of my actual beautiful albino fighting conch. Yeah that I found over on Key Waden. I love that shell. So anyway the reason I'm telling you this is because that might appeal to me but because I have something so great at home it just doesn't. Now this invasive yeah the green Asian mussel and then another banded tulip. So yeah if there's the seaweed wasn't here oh I can only imagine. But you know what even with the seaweed finding some pretty great stuff. There's another one of those pear whelks the phulgaropsis pyroloides. That is a mouthful. I like pear whelk better but I just I want to know. All right so me and two other people are out here. All right there's probably more but like I said didn't have a whole lot of competition. It was a weird day. It was kind of foggy kind of seaweedy but all in all this is always probably going to be my favorite beach and at least I'm finding stuff again. When I got here it was a little scary but I'm definitely not leaving empty-handed. Thank you once again Fort Myers Beach. Now the cleanup there was a little bit of garbage and I really I've been dying to get over 100 pounds so I was happy about that real heavy piece because today was one pound 6.55 ounces and in total I finally removed over 91 pounds of garbage from the beach and I've also removed a couple of sunray venus clams as well as that angel wing a bunch of drills in that buttercup lucene a sand dollar a calico scallop some calico box crab carapaces there's the crucifix shell some of those uh coquinas a worm snail those invasive asian green mussels jingles channel duck clam augers pear whelks or the fulgaropsis pyroloides there is some lace myricks some banded tulips a bunch of those olives I have a problem with them the apple myricks a couple of bubbles and a whole bunch of those cancellaria reticulata there was fighting conchs there's some giant line of cockles over there some top snails some florida fighting conchs lightning whelks on top a bunch of cones florida cones serif there's shark eyes all right honorable mentions to that albanistic the spiny jewel box that olive that uh florida fighting conch and the cantharis but these are my favorites it was the true tulip that crown conch that drill for whatever reason the myricks the uh pitted myricks and then the two sharp ribbed drills so that was a whole bunch of fun now let's quick look remember I said that um very kind of beat up true tulip it is on the older side I'm going to be careful it was soaked in bleach and I'll probably maybe quickly dip it in acid or not you know what I'm probably going to go oil on that one because it just it feels rather delicate and there was also that lace myricks that was I said I thought it was going to be more of a wabi wabi shabby shell and I was right it's kind of pretty but it is what it is and next week guys girls I I had a night that I have been telling if you have run into me the last couple weeks I've been blabbing about this night I had so much fun I had been peeking at the footage I haven't even like actually sat down to edit yet and I cannot wait so patreons thank you as always for giving me the support that allows me to go out and do all of these things including getting up but you know or going out at 10 30 at night or well you know whatever time it was it's I I really really can't wait for next week so until then I hope you have yourself a really great great week and I'll see you again next Sunday I'm I'm like tripping over my words I can't wait.