Seashell Soul Studio

If you're a little ocean critter, it really sucks ass when a human rolls up and picks you up out of the water.

Take the humble sea star, for example. No gills, no lungs. It breathes through tiny bumps on its skin that pull oxygen straight out of the water. Lift it into the air for a photo and those bumps collapse. The critter suffocates.

And the grab itself does damage too. Sea stars, limpets, and mussels hang onto the rock with everything they've got, because letting go means getting eaten or washed away. Pry one off and you can tear it or kill it. Flip a rock and whatever lives underneath gets baked by the sun.

In a lot of marine protected areas, picking up an animal even for a second can get you fined.

Crouch down, get close, take the picture in the water. If you have to touch, wet your hand in seawater, make sure it's sunscreen-free, and use two fingers. Then leave it where it is.

Love the bulby tips…

Do you know how a very young Horse Conch shell looks like? *Triplofusus giganteus* is one of the most iconic Florida marine snails and is well-known for its very large size. It grows to about 606 mm (about 24 inches) in length and is the world’s second largest living gastropod, after the Australian Trumpet (*Syrinx aruana*).

The photo on bottom right shows a 12 mm (about 0.5 inch) young shell. The white part on top of that young shell, known as the protoconch, was made by the snail while still living inside the egg capsule, prior to hatching! As shown in the top-right image, in well-preserved adult shells, the "young shell" remains at the shell apex. All shells in the image are from Sanibel Island, Florida.

Read more about SW Florida mollusks and their shells at https://shellmuseum.org/shells-and-science/shells-guide/

Love the Sea Bean Poster…

One of my favorite trees…

It all starts with a coral polyp! 🪸 These tiny ocean-dwelling animals are the basic building blocks of every reef on the planet.

Here’s the breakdown:
1) Corals live in colonies made of multiple tiny, identical polyps.
2) Corals pull calcium and carbonate from seawater to build hard skeletons—providing structure for both themselves and the overall reef architecture.
3) This structure provides essential shelter and food, creating a complex system that allows marine life to thrive.

Learn more: https://coralreef.noaa.gov/digital-corals/visual-media/infographics/what-makes-coral-reef

Happy NFL Kickoff!

To celebrate today we will learn a little about uchin spines.
Urchin spines have ball-and-socket joints that are made of calcium and carbonate, and allow them to crawl across the ocean floor. They also help defend against preditors, and when damaged or broken, can grow back over time. The spines -or fee- is also where they 'breathe,' which they do more often than in its gills!

🏈 🐚