Author: Jessica Leigh Hester / Source: Atlas Obscura
No matter where you are in the world, any beach you poke along is likely to be littered with serendipitous finds. Earth’s waters regularly spit out weird trash that we humans have dumped in there, along with natural treasures, such as shells, that have become dislodged from the depths.
If one of these shells catches your eye, you might want to pluck it from the waves—and if you do, you’ll probably want to know just what it is you’re looking at. When you do, you stand to learn a lot about life beneath the water.
We asked invertebrate experts for advice on how to suss out the shells you find on the beach—and if you’re sold on beachcombing, how best to set yourself up for successful shell-sleuthing.
Get your geographic bearings
Are you gazing out over saltwater, or freshwater? Contending with a gnarly current, or a glassine, placid surface? When you’re trying to decipher a find, consider what’s most likely to live where you are. “Sandy beaches often have bivalves burrowed under the sand in very shallow water; rocky shores often have chitons, top shells, periwinkles, and limpets attached to the rocks in rock pools,” says Suzanne Williams, head of the invertebrate division at the Natural History Museum in London.
Count the valves
Physical features are full of clues. Start by tallying up the number of valves and shell parts. “Of the most common groups, gastropods, have one shell, bivalves have two, and chitons have shells made up of eight interlocking parts,” Williams says.
Consider the color
In general, tropical shells are more brilliantly hued than their freshwater counterparts, and cold-water shells—particularly those in intertidal zones along the coasts of Alaska, Siberia, Canada, or Greenland—would be dark or black as a way to conserve heat, says José H. Leal, science director and curator of the Bailey-Matthews National Shell Museum in Florida. “Deep sea shells also tend not to be very colorful,” Williams notes. The hue offers clues about how deep a shell might have lived, and where in the world it originated. All of this can make a shell more Googleable.
Be forewarned: You might spy different coloration on members of the same species. The Southern quahog, which washes ashore all across the Atlantic Coast, starts out spangled with white-and-brown zig-zags that look something like lightning, but these fade with age. Adults are duller, with more ho-hum patterns.
Some shells are…
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