What makes these seashells so special? Inside my private collection.

Hello beach friends. Now normally when we spend time together, we're out on the beach looking to see what the tide has left behind. But this week I thought we'd do something a little different. Over the years, I've found quite a few things that were strange enough or interesting enough that I didn't want to put them away with everything else. So I've kept them off to the side where I could get at them easily, usually because there was something about them that I want to look at more closely. And I realized something. The things in these boxes haven't changed, but I have. I've learned a lot since I picked up some of these specimens. I've spent a lot more time looking closely at what washes up on our beaches. And I'm probably going to see some of these things very differently now than I did when I first found them. And honestly, I don't even remember everything I've put in those boxes. So instead of going to the beach this week, I thought it might be fun to open up these little time capsules of my shell collecting so if you're ready let's go see what's in those boxes okay so i do have these there's three of these boxes it's not very organized it really is just kind of cubbies and i've just been kind of throwing specimens into these boxes for the last couple of years this is the first time i'm really kind of going through it and then we'll talk through it i i don't know we'll just see what's in here um there's quite possibly things that i'm i don't even know why i put it in here or that i'm probably going to move out of here i this one for example so this is a fighting conch a juvenile fighting conch and there used to be a west indian fighting conch and a florida fighting conch to me i never really understood and it turns out there was a good reason for that because it really is the same specimen this one just happened to look very very pointy so i kind of liked it and i thought who maybe that's a west indian fighting conch but ultimately i just think it's kind of pointy so that's what's with this one i i will keep this in a special collection so we'll put that one to the side this one i can tell we got a little weirdo here and weirdos are the fun little shells with you know barnacles kind of got in the way something got in the way and so this little shell just kind of or it malformed when it was created and I find them to be interesting so I absolutely keep any of those kind of little little weirdo shells we're probably gonna end up finding a couple of those or seeing a couple of those okay so this alphabet cone what I thought was interesting about this one is that cones look if you can imagine how much room they have to eat and the these alphabet cones these only eat worms so they don't really need a lot of room on the inside but if they wanted to sometimes they dissolve the interior of their shell i have found a better example so we will come back to this but that's why i kept this one i'm going to put this one to another side i don't know that i need to keep this particular one because i have a better specimen this florida cone oh this one's a little weird too just a little it's just a little misshapen so this is a florida cone and here just on the aperture it just kind of bumps out yep the more i've been doing this the more i'm noticing just the patterns of these shells so this is just like a little a neat little weirdo i'm going to keep that keep that little neat little weirdo okay a boring turret snail i only have like one this is like the best example i have oh my table so i do have a table that i put some of my really cool shells in that's that's for another day um yeah we're just gonna keep keep with these boxes so this is a boring turret snail i probably should put it in the table i think they're neat it's like one of the like i said the best kind of one i have so put that to the side there these are some baby's ears probably because I just used to I still do I like them a lot and so I when I probably found my first couple I popped them in this box because I felt like you know it was it was special oh so just some babies there's nothing particularly special that I can tell although this one's a little different it's got a little bit different coloring on it but we just have some baby's ears I don't know that this still needs to to stay in with this box and you know what that's something for another time to worry about look at this this is a glorious and that's why it's in here not with my white shell because it's so pretty so this is an albino nutmeg not a um fossilized one truly an albino you can just you can kind of tell by the weight it still feels the same it doesn't feel light so that albino nutmeg just stunning this if i remember correctly i found this on shell island uh maybe i can go back and find it um yeah this somebody else coined it the frying egg jingle which i thought was kind of cool it just was absolutely massive that's why i kept it to the side look there's the baby foot in there somewhere so i just that's why i put this to the side because i thought it was massive now this one this is kind of fun so this is a colorful moon snail but it's kind of got some muted coloring on there so there is a little bit of shine still but it's just kind of muted which is kind of fun so yeah yeah i probably will keep this also in this fun little box look at this one it's just really pretty there's no no particular reason why this would in my opinion needs to stay in this box it just was maybe it's the first really really colorful one i ever found i don't know but pretty i don't think it needs to stay in the box we'll put that over there i'm kind of cleaning as i go oh i'm i'm kind of interested in glue so here we have a kitten paw that is glued or we have a corgi jewel box that is glued to a kitten paw so either way they're all glued together and i find it interesting so yeah that's nothing more this i would just just chalk that under chalk that under weird and weird i think we'll just pop back in the box here oh this is the operculum from a moon snail extremely delicate and terrible yeah i don't know you're really meant to save these i thought it was neat so i am gonna so leave that in the box that over there okay here's a dark serif look at this creature so this also had i'd kind of like a weirdo shell it malformed so that's why that's why i collected that one that's kind of that's kind of neat and I'll hold on to that oh we have like an auger yeah but we had some coral kind of growing on it oh that's just pretty you know so that's why i kept that just kind of interesting now whether it was before or after i knew that it was prohibited to collect coral hard to say but that is why i i collected that it looks like i have another weirdo dark serif that also was just malformed misshapen oh that's really misshapen just just neat stories and it just kept on chugging all right what do we have here okay so this is a ribbed cantharus yeah its ribs are just a little like sloppy they're they're not quite vertical see that top row is vertical and then it just kind of so it was different and that just interested me so just an interesting ribbed cantharus and what do we have oh my gosh so this is a juvenile fighting conch that is also this is probably the smallest little quote-unquote freak shell I have. Oh wow that's really cool. Yeah so that that's going to stay in my happy little box. This is beautiful. That's probably why it's in here. It's just a bay scallop. Just great coloring on it. Yeah nothing nothing freaky about it. Just happens to be a pretty bay scallop. So nothing terribly interesting about that. Let's see what we got here our top snail hard to say some of these top snails, the Tampa top snail and the jujube top snail, this one just looks like a regular old top snail to me, all right, although to be fair, I can see why I thought it was a little different, the coloration is a little different, I'm going to just chalk that up to fun and pop that in there, this I know I kept that because I like seeing the columellar fold so that's what all those little twisty things are called and that's where the animal attaches to the shell, the columellar fold, so I, a peekaboo shell I call these, and I just thought that that was kind of neat, I probably don't pick them up anymore because I have this one, like I don't need a whole bunch of them so that's just kind of neat a peekaboo, peekaboo nutmeg, oh, a striate nasa, oh that's kind of neat, I've only found a couple of those, yes, my box is a little sandy, I yeah, I don't really like clean this box, um, so I'm probably going to encounter some sand along the way but this is a striate nasa, so that's kind of fun and then this is a Tampa turret and I likely just this could have been one of the first ones I held on to, at this point I have found enough of them where I might not put them in this special box anymore, but in the beginning I definitely was so that is a tampa turret what do we got here okay nacre just a very particularly green a kind of a pretty piece of nacre nothing else to really kind of say about that i see some jingles in here okay that's kind of fun so that little dot there that's the business of a jingle and so here here we have one that's attached so this hole that's where that business goes so that jingle would have been attached like like so and when this was kind of removed or this came apart from wherever it was glued to that's this is what's left behind and then this is what a hinged jingle that is free will look like so i find i guess it's kind of like i guess the gluing thing is kind of neat so i do find that to be interesting here's another I still sometimes collect the hinged jingles because I just I do find them kind of again just kind of interesting I'm just gonna put those to the side. We have I Why I have no clue. This does not need to go in here No, no, just some maybe I just like the interior of it I don't know but I have found plenty of beat-up worm snails and augers So maybe we can we can remove that from the collection. Let's put that over there. We have some all right periwinkles so these are are like yeah i could see why they're not easy to find i mean i find them periodically i could see the very first ones i found i would have popped in here so it does look like there's a mangrove mangrove periwinkle a cloudy periwinkle not sure about this other one they're kind of shaped the same but the colors are a little different so yeah i can see why those one in there yeah i'll just that's fine they can stay in there oh wow look at this one wow that is yeah just just a little shell that could you know look at that is just amazing that life that this thing had man barnacles they picked a bad place to go but the snail just kept on kept on making it it wasn't easy oh wow yeah that's just a really a really interesting it's a very interesting shell here look at this the button so the same thing went on here something happened and the the snail kind of malformed yep that's why i held on to that one it's kind of interesting we'll pop that over there why no idea is it because of that so when when they i've explained a couple times like how these guys make their little uh spikes and this is a good example of it and the animal kind of goes up and makes that spike the spikes are not solid that's probably why i held on to that now we'll keep that oh another tamperid oh a kind of a weird tamperid yeah that's machine yep kind of it's like it didn't grow at the rate it was supposed to grow that's why i kept that one kind of neat a hagstone yep some creature i used i used to say and used to think it was water but uh i think a critter drilled in that there are i will show you i know i have an example of here some yeah i'll talk about it when i get to it so anyway this is a hagstone and some critter kind of drilled a circle hole in there this critter it's a kitten paw but it's really really flat that's probably like there's barely any paws to it i just found it interesting and different that's what's going on with that okay here we have a pearl oyster that i bleached both sides so look isn't that so there's that nacre but this is from a a pearl oyster that we'll have actually that's a pearl oyster we'll get to that that's the way it kind of naturally looks i put the whole thing in bleach and this is what happens to it really really pretty all right where were we i think we were up to here so these are the these are those colorful moon snails they call a Veras moon snail this one is just a colorful moon again with that muted kind of coloring on it i find just they're different so i just i think they're kind of interesting this one's different as well but also color for moon snails just a little bit different coloring more here's this one's a really good example of that like different coloration that's one wait why are you in here i got nothing just looks like a beautiful colored i'll take you out you you can just go with everybody else what do we got oh a dusky cone i wonder why you're in here let's see just a good example maybe one of my first ones perhaps all right maybe all right we got a dusky cone oh this uh i think i found this on Lover's Key this uh chestnut turban it was spiky i don't remember really i know they can i've seen pictures of them to be a little bit spiky so i thought that was kind of neat i had never personally found a spiky one so i thought that was kind of cool all right we have one of those muted yep muted i still like it we're gonna leave you and then a hinged jingle put you with a jingle all right now this is a kind of like a fossil it feels like stone so i don't typically collect fossils they just don't interest me it's possible that one day they will i don't know so far they just haven't but this i did find kind of neat like i said it feels like a rock so that's kind of a fun like fossilized clam of some sort so i like imperial venus clams so much i wonder if i put all of them i think i might have one or two in my table but i guess like they're so special to me that i won't even put them in with my regular collection or at least these couple ones i now would if i were to find any i would put them in with some east coast shells so i'm gonna i'll just leave those all right so this oh it was hinged at some point so this is a also a pearl oyster and so this is what it looks like without before you bleach it and i was just curious and sure enough the bleach will just take all of that out. But that outside is actually really pretty. So I just, I just left it. I just, and that's why it's in this special box because it's not very often that you find a specimen like this hinged. I realize it's not hinged anymore, but to have the pair is kind of cool. So that's, that's kind of fun. Put you over here. Okay. This, we have a frond oyster with just a worm snail just glued to it. That's it. Nothing else special kind of going on here. Interesting. That's why I kept it. I'll still put it in here. I got room. I don't really need to do anything with that. This is a little, oh, look how little it has some periostracum on it. So this is a cut ribbed arc. I happen to really like cut ribbed arcs, but I typically only find the really big ones. That's fun with its periostracum on there. All right. That's kind of cool. I'll just pop you in there. All right. This, I have a feeling, so that is a ribbed cantharus. This particular color, the orange version of the ribbed cantharus is to die for I see a couple in the box so I just really really enjoy these shells and I think that these just have really fantastic color on them so I've chosen to just kind of put them in here yeah those are neat I'm definitely gonna leave them those are beautiful do I love me a good ribbed cantharus but oh all right we have pitted murex so this is another one of these this is a really good actually example of one too so that is a little pitted murex and they're so tiny i'm glad i have one in this box it would be hard to find this in my in my regular shell collection so those are that is pretty fun and is this the white crested telling i only have found one all right i'm not gonna well we'll get to it the white crested telling jewel box i'm sure that i grabbed this because it the spiny jewel box was glued to this transverse arc kind of neat we'll put the gluing over there and another glued one i don't probably the first couple ones i found i thought were really really interesting and frankly i find them kind of more on the on the regular now although that one does have a drill hole in it i'm you know i'm gonna leave i'm gonna leave this one i will leave this one there you just a little spiky you don't need to be in here anymore is interesting a little sand and no just a hinged spiny jewel box and then this one has a pretty good spike on it yeah that's likely why i put this in here that's kind of fun then the white crested tellin come on i've only found one ever that i would definitely put it in these boxes so there it is the only one i've ever found fun and that's again why it would go in here if i put it in my collection i'd never see it again these yeah oh they're glorious i love the spikes all right that's a glued example I don't think I need to review, but these are just fabulous, fabulous spiky glued specimens. Okay. And that's likely, I definitely collect these. I don't put them in, you know, in the box anymore because I've seen them. So it's fun. It's kind of like going through down memory lane I'm going to put a couple of those away and then we're going to deal with box number two. Okay. Box number two, we'll just start in this upper corner. I know that I kept it look it's not albino I do not have an albino olive yet however I do have quite a few placeholders so I just think it's really beautiful but it's not an albino I'll get eventually oh look more ribcanthus like that one's kind of droopy that's probably why I kept that one on that one almost like albino so the I'm going to put those with the other ones that's kind of cool so I will i'm gonna put those over there and i'm gonna skip over to the orange ones because i think i have isn't that beautiful so that's another one of those rib canthus the orange this one's this one's orange that's a rib canthus as well as this and and these are probably literally the only orange ones i've ever felt like i know they exist but i they're so special to me that's kind of all right so i'm gonna put those all right i just had a moment with the rib canthus all right can't right back to this so it's telling you that things grow or they going back to the rock with the hole in it so in addition to i think this is kind of fun because it kind of looks like a dragonfly to me but that what made these holes was another clam a clam that lives inside the shell so the clam will drill through the shell material if it goes too far it goes oh my gosh i actually need to build up a little bit. So the clam will then build up a little home. So if it goes straight through it, sometimes you'll also see a little bit of the, it's almost like the substrate that they create. Stimson's chimney clam, I believe is one of the species that does that. I just think that that's fascinating. So it's stuff like that. That's really, really interesting to me. This is more recent uh find so that that i oh look i did it again so there's more periwinkles same thing oh except for the stocky cerith so these three are periwinkles just like we already talked about look at this little stocky cerith it's so cute i remember the first first one i found was at dry Tortugas and i was not able to keep it so i guess along the way i found one on the east coast maybe but that's kind of fun so little stocky cerith this little lace murex isn't that cool and then little bright orange horse conchs these really shouldn't they don't need to be in here anymore a dime a dozen well maybe not in the summer but you know those those used to be special and i'm gonna downgrade them to yeah i find them a bunch although i wonder why i put this in here just because it was just kind of fun a little true tulip yeah that could probably come out too so we have a little juvenile orange true tulip let's see this oh yeah the face all right we'll leave that i don't know why all right this is also a stocky cerith that one it's just i'm not in great shape i don't know why this auger this cerith maybe that's why i was like huh what is that and yeah just terribly not interesting to me now i'll still keep it maybe for future reference i don't know we'll put those in there these are all my Sandell turrids the most best example i have is in in the table but here is a really good example of one they typically like when i see pictures of them they're really in not in great shape or that time i found that live one over on Fort Myers Beach that was that one was that was just amazing but that's what happens the likely why people live collect because the the specimens are in really good condition when they're alive but that's not how i roll i know that's not how most of us roll so those are cool it's Sandell turrids oh more all right Corregid jewel box glued to stuff yeah i really like the gluing why okay Corregid jewel box i thought this was going to be um an old crossbar venus clam but nope i yeah okay i'll just leave that be oh painted egg cockle look at how beautiful that's likely why this is in here it's just a really lovely example of a painted egg cockle oh that's beautiful that's great another dusky cone in really great shape i even left a little junk in the aperture all right a little dusky cone and another top snail this looks a little more like the coloring i would expect to find i have no idea why i put it in the box nope no idea we're just going to move him out of the box um these are tampa turrets we already kind of talked about those so i i yep i so the santa belle turrets and the tampa turrets i do kind of put those in a little collection oh this is just straight up color isn't that fun uh you don't typically find the fighting conchs with those kind of stripes and something like this i wouldn't want to get mixed in with my other seashells so i just kind of put them in here that's kind of fun all right i yeah i don't know why this isn't here it's beautiful this is an alternate talon a hinged alternate talon a great example of one i i'll just leave it that's fine you're you're great so another fighting conch that really had to fight through i would assume barnacles or growth or something on the shell interesting that's interesting and another little true tulip again i don't it doesn't really need to be in the box per se but there we go that to the side this broken apple murex maybe i picked it up way back when because i thought the interior was kind of interesting but now i it's not that interesting or i've just i've seen the broken apple murex so yeah i'm gonna downgrade that and take that out this was kind of fun because it's it's it's a broken nutmeg but it really just kind of shows you how if the shell breaks a certain way so this shell obviously was was about that big but if it breaks a certain way you can really kind of see the juvenile shell and the way that the animal just continues to spiral and grow yeah that's interesting so that's a little nutmeg okay pointed venus clams why are you in here they're beautiful examples of pointed venus clams maybe that's i don't know they're just different although i do kind of find them on the regular so not sure why they're in here they don't need to be i'll work that out later let's see a coffee melampus all right i don't know why you're in here i'll for put you with the alternate talent just because i can all right you also no idea why this apple lyrics is in here nope i don't see anything particularly remarkable about it just in case somebody else does though the things i'm going to take out i'm going to put to the side i'm not actually going to like do anything with them. I'm going to wait till this video comes out and make sure that I, you know, don't get rid of anything that's actually kind of quite special. Kitten paw hinged. Okay. To collect it's, it's, if I can't separate the valves, I leave it at the beach, but this one apparently was, was okay to take home. And this is a little scorched mussel. Don't find them often. I don't, yeah, I don't collect them, but I don't see them that often either. So that's just a little scorched mussel. all right moving along let's do this guy likely i just liked the coloring so that is a fighting conch with kind of some cool coloring i'll leave leave you these look like sharp ribbed drills that one looks like it's in terrible shape i don't know why you're in here yeah you're pretty i can't imagine mixing that into just a bowl of other little shells oh you look a little tall just beautiful so it's a sharp rib drill i'm gonna put yeah i'm downgrading you all right let's move into the rosy wolf snail so this is a land snail it's not really a sea snail as is this flat coil actually rosy wolf snails eat flat coils rosy wolf snails um they follow the the trail from snails and they hunt them down and they eat them they were introduced in hawaii with terrible consequences. So that was a little bit of a bummer for Hawaii, but that's what that is. We have another, a glued spiny jewel box. Yeah, I could probably take that out. Another albino nutmeg. This one's not quite as glorious as that other one. I could probably put that with my white shell since I have that other example. We have another albino nutmeg. Oh, a purplish simile. this is a gorgeous example of a purplish simile. I don't have many, that's likely why this is in here. Is that stuck on there? Yep, that's stuck on there. But a gorgeous example of a purplish simile. This is, these are also beautiful. Two more examples of beautiful. Okay, I think these are fossils. So I know I said I don't really, they don't really appeal to me, but this one almost looks like some sort of like weird Wendell trap. This looks like a spindle shell. I don't know know that that's a fossil or not but you know it could be contemporary shells that have been fossilized or it could be a fossil i don't know but i did for whatever reason decide to hold on to those two and that's fine you can stay in there i've got a little milk moon snail i only have like one and that's why it's in here sometimes like if i find is it really special i have again i keep referring to that table but either the table or the box i want to be able to um get my hands on these shells quickly this is a juvenile queen likely the very first one I ever had so that's why that's in here sharp rib drill not in great shape but I I do like them I'm very enamored by them it's not in great shape doesn't need to be in here so we're going to downgrade that this is fossilized it's a uh I don't think it's albino I think it's just so it's a crown conch but just completely white interesting so threw that in here with this dyed we know how they get like discolored so this black calico scallop and just discolored so just two discolored shells interesting i guess if i ever needed to refer to example of discoloration i could do that all right glued so we just got oyster that glued itself all over this little horse conch along with that white eastern slipper snail so i thought that was interesting and left all the beach stuff intact which is when I first started collecting something like this my Marty Feldman shell something like this I I would bleach these barnacles off but as time went on I don't know I started to like appreciate it and how you can find a plain shell but to find one with barnacles on it is actually maybe a little special so I used to you know it's just different it's funny how some of the things that I used to do or it it's just different live and learn right okay this I believe it's a thick lipped drill. It's a different, I kind of get, I trip up the thick lipped and the sharp ribbed because they have adjectives and they're kind of shaped the same. So I believe that this is a thick lipped drill. I'm going to go ahead and put it next to the sharp ribbed drill. What is this? I don't know. Old white mauve mouth drill. Yeah. I don't know. I'm not sure why i thought that was interesting don't know i've moved on what else we got all right this is a giant coquina probably like one like the only one i have and that's why that's in this box so not in great shape it's my placeholder the giant coquina all right we have oh okay so we have a little all right it looks like a regular old top snail but that one is a depressed top snail here i'll put the little one that a little taller but i don't think there's anything crazy with you you on the other hand you are a depressed top snail look at that so it's it's shaped very differently i only have one this is the only one just like my white crested talons so yep there's a whole bunch of other specimens out there that i haven't met yet here all right we have some hinged rose petal talons i'm obsessed because with the shell flowers so these are nothing special about these i don't know why you're in here just i maybe it's the first time i collected hinged birds i don't know i haven't been in here a while interesting they don't need to be in here i'll work that out later oh a hinged egg cockle i think morton's egg cockle i don't typically find them hinged so it's kind of tripping me up no it's a little clam no that's not an egg but that's not the right shape mystery no wonder i threw it in here how maybe maybe it's a little mystery i was never able to figure out so that's the other thing i'll do is and then i'll just pop it in these boxes so all right another little mystery so this is the end of box two i think i'm ready to move on oh yeah there's some good stuff in here okay this is my original box so this is the box where it all started i do want to go in um yeah i'll just do it because i really want to talk about that but we have a big old lace murex i don't know that there's anything special other than it is a big lace murex yeah i don't know why that's in here it's a big lace murex so i'll worry about that later these are more lace murex and i'm assuming that i have these because they're so beautifully lacy and so i didn't want to put these in with my quote quote regular collection oh i can see why i did that look at this one oh it's exquisite so you know i think if you were to live collect your specimen would look a little more like something like those but that's not how we roll so yeah really beautiful and there's another let me put gently kind of try to put those here's another pitted Murex i guess i have at least two of them and this is an operculum from either a lace or an apple Murex that's what that little tiny that would go in that little tiny little hole so that's what that is i know that i from storms um you'll see them that the animals are clearly deceased and that's yeah likely where i probably found that from a storm all right i i thought i wanted to talk about this i thought this was the um this was that one but it's not i don't know why this is in here it's very pretty yeah i'm not sure was it maybe like the first really really beautiful one i found i don't know i don't know why this is in here that's funny all right i'm gonna put that with this guy look how adorable so they're just little alphabet cones they're so cute it's likely why they're in here because they're just so adorable and I'm going to leave them in here yeah they're just kind of isn't that funny the color so when I show up here Sanibel Fort Myers area I tend to find the alphabet cones that look like this color but when I go down to Key West in the 10,000 islands they tend to be that chocolate color it's just interesting how the different pockets of species will produce different colored seashells okay the flats so i find them so rarely this is probably all the ones i've ever found literally wow that is pretty glorious so that this one has like a little bit of a hole in it i haven't found one in a really long time they're kind of pretty i mean kind of pretty they're really i really that's beautiful and then the other valve looks like this so the other valve would look like so so that's the way these guys they're not you know they're not flat like a two valves aren't flat although i do have something that two valves are kind of flat we'll get to that in a second so yeah the flats the zigzag flack or the round rib or the ravenel's scallop they have a couple different names there are two different species the round rib and the zigzag but you kind of you get the gist of it we have some variable worm rock i don't know what well maybe way back when i found it kind of interesting and now i just i kind of see it all the time i don't pay a whole lot of attention to it this is a red brown arc i typically only find these on captiva and on the east coast of uh florida i don't it's weird i don't know exactly why it's in here but i'll leave it red brown arc this is a little weirdo look it's got like a double row of not like even from the beginning this guy was an overachiever guy or gal so that's why i held on to this a little bit of a weirdo shell that's interesting so there's a lot of different ways that they can kind of mutate so that's that one this one check out the lip so this here very thick very not supposed to be like that just yeah again it's misshapen i don't know what happened I don't know what in its DNA told it to kind of it went rogue but that that is why I kept this particular shell this one is another looks like a barnacle kind of got in there and it was not able to create its shell the way it normally would have been able to bummer so this is what I was talking about with the alphabet cone and they dissolved the interior of their shell now this is not so I don't know if this was naturally done um obviously the shell has been broken but just to show you so if this critter wanted to eat something bigger it dissolves the interior of its shell so it can drag its prey in there and just have a little more room to kind of work and eat and do its thing so i'm going to keep looking for a better example of this but i thought that was just kind of kind of cool the alphabet cone all right this is a beautiful example of an egg cockle yeah that's probably why that's in here it's just a really good example i don't have many of them and so if it it was just really really pretty i wanted to have access to it so i'll pop it in here this i have a feeling that these are just rough scallops and calico scallops i guess at some point that i thought were just kind of kind of pretty look at that it's broken i have no idea why i would keep that oh wait a minute it's not broken it's misshapen it's wrinkled it's not broken weird that's why i kept that that's neat oh and look at this one it literally broke and then repaired itself wow i should this one is just pretty all right i was all right this one also this looks like there's two shells on it look at that so something happened and it just kind of flipped out and said all right i'm going to start over and i don't know that is neat but this one just pretty so we could have a weirdo could have a just pretty show hard to say let's see we have pretty pretty pretty all right yeah the rest of these are just the rest of these are just lovely oops sorry wow look at this one though oh you know what that is a um ravenelles this should be up here that's from a um that's not a calico scallop that's from a flat i'm gonna pop that up there beautiful bay scallop yeah i really do like the bay scallops that's probably one of the more beautiful ones I've ever found look at this one gorgeous and then the color look at this oh and it's still it's hinged so I know it was you know empty when I collected it and this just goes to show you how different the coloring is on either side they will not match that's really cool oh that's neat you got some cool stuff I will pop those back in here in a minute, what's going on with you oh i see the top yep a little bit of a little bit of a weirdo shell so that's i have a lot of the adult ones that little tiny one was really neat so this is a turkey wing the only one i've ever found that had some of its periostracum on it so i let it dry and i thought that was just kind of cool so the only example that i have of a turkey wing with periostracum so i decided to hold on to that these are my my other placeholders for my albino olive none of them are actually albino some of them are close just light and then we have we have here all right we have another okay we have some paper cockles so these i don't find often if i had to say these are probably those three those are probably the only three that i have and then we have this pretty scallop i'm going to pop that in with the other pretty scallops but probably this is likely i just have them here because i don't find them often so if i wanted to refer to them they're in my in the magical box now moving right along from the olives we have the rose murex and so yeah i don't find them enough to have to really i probably have a couple oh look at this tiny little it's a little lace look at that so i have this is like the third one in my collection i found i have one of my tinies too anyway so a little tiny lace and i have a couple of rose murexes in there oh that one even has its little spines on it that's cool that is neat and is this one albino yep i think so that's a couple of those some more rose petal talons a comb bittersweet i'm not exactly sure why you know i don't find them that often at least over here i don't so i'll leave you in there so that's a comb bittersweet the lion's paw now that's probably the biggest and most intact one I've ever found which is why it's in here I just do not find them in great shape I don't spend a lot of time on the east coast shelling it's just three hours away I try to get over there as often as I can but the these are great shells but that's probably why that's in here it's one of the only intact examples of a lion's paw that I have and this is another one it's like stone so it's another like one of those clam fossil kind of specimens. Different. I guess I've only found two. I think I'm good though. I don't think I'll pick up any more. Now this is absolutely massive. Compared to the size of the banded tulips that I normally collect, this is just crazy big. And that is probably why these two look so... Those two massive shells, that is why those are in here. They're just really, really big. And I I guess I've literally only found two this size, very interesting, very pop, let me put those over there, let's move on to here, okay, here we have another anomaly like the shell was created weird it almost looks like it was laser cut so I don't know what's going on there, just I I I don't know and I again found it, found it interesting so decided to hold on to that, so that's what's going on with that, this is an albino fighting conch um, this is one of my placeholders, this poor this poor fella gal, yeah yeah, it had a hard knock life, that's for sure but um, so this is my one of a few different placeholders I have, I'm going to hold on to it for now, I can always change my mind down the road, but for now that's what I'm going to do, a placeholder albino, this I thought was interesting, so there's a specimen called a fallen angel wing, this is not a fallen angel wing, this is just a regular angel wing but it just has that kind of shape to it, I know this is not a fallen angel wing because they only well one it's not it's not the right shape doesn't have the right attributes and the fallen angel wing only gets to about two inches and this is much bigger than that, but just just a different kind of um, different kind of angel wing, so I just thought was kind of interesting, here we have, oh yeah that pair, well, that kind of grew a little bit weird, so this is a little bit different than it normally would be so that's that's what so a little bit of a weirdo that's why that guy's in there this the flat tree oyster i found this over on kais a million years this was i think before ian um so this is a flat tree oyster these particular oysters jam themselves into areas and so like a whole bunch of them can occupy a little tiny space. So I these were in two different areas. I just I just happened to find both of them. So a flat tree oyster. Fascinating. Really kind of interesting. What else? Oh look at this olive. A little bit of a weirdo here. So something happened and it just kind of malformed. So that's why this little weirdo's in here. I'll put you over there. A blood arc, like the only one I have. That's why it's in here. But yeah, I don't find them often and that's the only one I have. So that's my, that's my blood arc for now. I have a couple pieces of Janonia. I mean, I have my Janonia. That's with my regular collection. I guess these are just pieces I've found along the way. So I will hold on to those as well. So I do have those. This, I literally found it on the beach like this so i just i kept it this shell wound itself so i found it on the beach like this and i just thought that was kind of fun so i decided to leave it like that pop that in my magical box all right another piece of Janonia a little piece of pen shell actually it just this is kind of attractive so this is what i would consider a kind of attract an attractive pen shell put that over there what else we got look at this lentil trap probably like the biggest one it doesn't need to be in my special box it could probably go with my lentil traps but still just fun pointed venus clam i don't know why you're in here uh red brown arc not even in good shape so it's it's oh look at this mexican talon look at what a great shape that is oh that's beautiful so that's a mexican talon little tiny rose petal too in there a little limpet just pretty don't know why you're in here all right moving right along let's see we have rock snail those are more of an east coast kind of find oh look at how beautiful oh and it's hinged too so this is a rose petal talon there's a sunrise talon a candy stick talon there's a couple other ones that are i don't have but and so this it's not a placeholder it's a rosebud talon but it just reminds me of those other shells that i would like to find one day so hopefully hopefully i will what do we got little top snail so we're getting more into because this was my first box i'm kind of going why what was special about you you look a little taller yeah i'll hold on to you uh baby's ear that's probably why that's in there pointed venus clam look i mean purplish tagalus i don't know why you're in here that's funny okay we have some long spire star shells these i don't find often you'll find them up more north on the west coast of florida and on the east coast but here kind of like in southwest florida difficult to find likely why they're in there these are the only so this is a smooth duck clam kind of like the channelled duck clam but it is a smooth duck clam. It's got that fun wrinkle in it which I just really kind of like. These I called the potato chip shell but this is a fat talon. I have two of them and if I remember correctly I I know I found my first one up at Honeymoon Island. I don't remember if I got both of these there but these are fat talons. The only examples that I have and so that that's why these are in here. So now i'm gonna slide back over here because we haven't talked about these yet this is a banded tulip but the coloring was just so weird i love the orange ones and this one just looks off it just looks very different so that is why this ended up in my magical box this is a winged oyster so i either found this missing its periostracum it's a little chalky or i bleached it off it's hard to say but this is a winged oyster not to be confused with the pearl oyster that's i think the one of the only examples i have which is likely why it's in this box oh here's a tusk shell it's kind of fun this is likely a weirdo yeah this too oh yeah aperture is way um there's way more space here than there should be so a little bit of a goofy yeah and yep so i i suspect the barnacle just kind of threw this shell off its groove so it made it a little bit wonky so that's why that's in here a couple more oh a cross hatched lucine that one looks great those are just fun i just because I like them so that's likely why that's in here maybe the first really good example I found pop that over there Eastern white slipper snail okay kind of fun we'll pop you over here hinged jingle we already saw a couple of those but then just to don't know why you're in here all right I mean the hinged one I do this other guy doesn't need to be in here let's talk about these crown conchs oh you're a purdy this probably has they typically they're a little more like this I like this one because it's spiky but that's it it's not getting any better it's this is a more typical example of crown conch um but I just happen to have this glorious wow I guess if the shows are like really really pretty I'm gonna pop them in these cases or kind of like put them in the table put them on my desk um yeah this is not really a collection video I've already showed you like my collection this is just different so you I I feel like I want to go show you the other shelves but I've already done that I I digress so just some very pretty examples of crown conchs and this again this would be more typical rather light but got a little bit of spikes I do like having a couple different examples and looks like some more boring turret snails so I do have these are not in great shape that other one is in much better but these are just different all right so apparently i have four of them who knew the four of the boring turret snails so it just goes to show how different things are and how it's funny to put something away you know like a time capsule and some of these things i you know i don't even know why i put them in here really really fascinating so now i know why i didn't tell you about this shell it would not fit into my shell box but this fabulous atlantic giant cockle. It clearly was broken and the clam decided it was just going to keep on going man. It repaired its shell and you know it's one of the reasons I have such a hard time passing by the strange things. A beautiful shell is easy to notice but sometimes it's the odd little piece you almost walk past that has the most interesting story to tell. Now before we head out today I want to take a minute to thank my patrons I know I say thank you a lot, but I also never want your support to become something I simply expect. The fact that you choose month after month to help support me and this channel genuinely means a lot to me. You help make it possible for me to keep getting out there, chasing low tides, exploring new places, and bringing all of you along with me. So whether you've been here for years or you just recently joined please know that I notice it I appreciated it and I'm incredibly grateful that you're part of this little shell hunting community we've built together truly thank you now no garbage was picked up today but perhaps next week when we're at honeymoon island I can help clean up a few things and I will tell you I definitely helped take a couple chestnut turban operculums off the beach so until then I hope you have yourself a great week and I'll see you again next Sunday.