Egg Shell Casings
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I'm fascinated by egg shell casings. For the longest time, I had no idea what I was looking at. Was it seaweed? Was it a sea sponge? Nope. They were egg casings. Hundreds of shells come from these eggs. My favorite is the horse conch (far left) -- the national shell of Florida. The egg casing resembles a little trumpet, just like the shell. And the prettiest is the banded tulip egg casing; they look like tiny bouquets of flowers -- just like the delicate shells they produce. The apple murex took me the longest to figure out because I thought it was a sea sponge for the longest time. Finally, I investigated it further and was surprised that it was an apple murex egg casing. The egg casing that is most common is the lightning whelk (far right). Sometimes I find them as long as three feet. Can you imagine how many eggs it produces? Each capsule contains approximately 0-99 eggs and most strings contain 40 to 160 capsules. So what should you do when you find one washed up on shore? If