This is a picture of a whelk's egg case. A whelk is a large snail, that is a predator. The whelk's shell keeps them safe because they are all mushy.
Inside of each case there are tons of tiny whelk shells. There can be 0-99 eggs in each case. This is a picture of the little whelk shells in the egg case.
The mom whelk snail sticks one of the ends of the egg casing into the sand in the water. Unfortunately, this egg case washed ashore and the snails dried up.
This is a baby whelk shell next to a penny.
This is a picture of a mature channeled whelk.
What an exciting find!
3 comments:
Grey, that shell was teensie winsie, i.e. very tiny.
Yeah, that shell is very teensie. It is the smallest shell I have ever seen in my life.
Well, this was an amazing blog. I have never seen any thing like this! It is a good thing you did the research and wrote all about it, or I would never have guessed that it was a whelk egg case!
Thanks,
Margie
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