Moana Talks Seashells

Aloha, makamaka! It's me, Moana, back on the blog with something fun and relaxing. With summer just around the corner (40 days until June 21st!) I thought it would be a good time to do something more summer-y. I found a glass box of seashells in the humans' house from all over, some from Mexico, and Florida, and even Guam! I didn't think they would notice if I borrowed a few to teach you guys about the different types of saltwater shells. Don't worry, I'll put them back. Eventually.

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Now, to begin, these are the shells you've probably found before if you live in a place like She's. Landlocked, with no ocean in sight. And even though these are lovely shells, why have these when you could have...

...these?

Firstly, you may notice that these shells are a lot more intricate and smooth than the ones I was holding in the picture before this one. That's because saltwater shells have a rougher environment, getting tossed around constantly by the tumultuous sand and waves. Freshwater shells can also be around sand, but creeks, lakes, and steams are usually calmer or more stagnant than the ocean. And only so many different kinds of creatures that have shells that live in freshwater, but in the ocean, there are tons more, maybe some that haven't been discovered by humans yet!

These are the shells I'm going to be telling you about today. Already, the undersides look very interesting.

You might want to get comfortable for this. I know a lot about shells. I could talk about them for hours, but I'll try not to do that. Here I have my very own source of comfort with this giant concave clamshell half I'll be using as a chair.

This first one here is likely a cockle shell. They can be mistaken for scallop shells, but cockle shells have a rounded close at the bottom, and, when looked at sideways with both of them together, they look more like a heart. Scallops are very popular shells and are probably the most well-known of them all. For reference, here is a picture I found of a scallop online.

You can see they have those plates on each side at the close. Like scallops, cockles are mollusks and can also be eaten by humans, but I'm not interested in that because they probably smell icky. Both of these are gentle creatures and they like to live around sandy, grassy places in the ocean that are nice and sheltered.

This next shell is probably my favorite. Elsa said that the colors look like my outfit and hair, and I'd have to agree with her. Maybe the humans wouldn't miss this one. It reminds me of the queen conch my character finds as a baby in the movie, but this isn't a queen conch. Because of its short tip and its curl inwards, this is most likely an alphabet cones. Alphabet cones are also well known for the brown, white, and tan pattern around the shell. This type of shell doesn't come from a crab like you might expect, but from a snail that's actually pretty cool. These snails can get as big as some fish, and yes, they will hunt for these fish! They use a venomous tooth like a spear to paralyze their prey. After that, it's easy capture. If you ever find a live alphabet cone snail in the wild, be careful with it or it may feel threatened and find you to be a tasty tiny fish.

I also have another conch shell here, this time it looks like a scaphella junonia. (Remember that all shells are different, like snowflakes, Elsa says, so some of them are harder to indetify.) For example, I'm not sure if this really is a scaphella junonia since the point has broken off, and scaphella junonias have characteristic long and thin points. Otherwise, the white and brown spots and the smoothed opening hint to scaphella junonia. If any of you readers out there are shell experts, let me know if I'm missing anything. Anyways, this kind of shell houses another large sea snail, and they live in very deep waters. Scaphella junonia can be rare, since they only ever wash up on shore after a large ocean storm or hurricane. I think Pua knows how special this kind of shell is. Or maybe he just likes how he matches the spots.

Next we have something really interesting- coral! Coral isn't really a shell at all, but a fossil because at one point, this coral was alive in the sea. Many people may think that coral is a plant, since they look like flowers on land, but they are actually animals since they are unable to provide their own food like air plants do. The one on the left is not coral at all, but a pumice stone. Eruptions of underwater volcanoes can produce pumice like this, and then humans like to collect it and use it for beauty treatments. The one on the right is true coral, a tabulate coral that produces those mound shapes. Coral can come in all colors, so purple isn't anything unusual. In fact, coral can be orange, pink, yellow, brown, and green, too, or basically any other color you can think of.

These next two are very smooth, small, and adorable. The one on the right I'm certain is a tiger cowrie. Tiger cowries are another kind of invertebrate that spend their days hanging out on underwater rocks or coral and then go foraging for food at night. They have a line of ridges on both sides of their openings like the shell on the left. That one looks most like a coffee bean trivia, named so because they look like coffee beans. But I've never seen a coffee bean that was yellow with a pea-shaped bump in the center. If that exists, I don't think that coffee would be very good.

I saved the best two for last! This one is a real spiny conch shell, which are definitely not as smooth as the ones I've showed you before. These are very common, yet gorgeous shells, and mostly crabs, land and water, can dwell within them. They say if you hold a conch shell to your ear, you can hear the waves of the ocean, but all I hear is a murmur. I wonder what that means.

Finally, the unicorn horn! You were probably asking about this one from the first picture with all of the shells. It's definitely a unique one, isn't it? This is a boring turret shell, known for their orange creme coloring, long, pointed tip, and smoothed whorls. The ones I've seen always have this small hole in the center of the shell, but I'm not sure why. I guess the shell expert doesn't know as much as she thought she did. But I do know this: boring turret shells house another kind of snails that prefer warmer waters. I know that you're probably tired of snails by now, but this is a snail that lives in a unicorn horn. Not so "boring" after all.

Iohini makamaka,

Moana of Motunui