FollowSeashells wash up on the shores of beaches all around the world. They come in so many different shapes and sizes. Each one has been the home of a marine invertebrate or more often, a mollusk. It’s kinda cool to think that they are the apartments and houses of the sea. Have you ever wondered who lives in seashells?
Two Halves of a Whole
The shells that you find adrift on the beach are most often just two halves of a whole. Finding seashells intact is a fun hunt for the whole family as they are very rare to find. There are over 15,000 species that have bihalves including clams, mussels, oysters, and even scallops. When you find one intact, you are more than likely to find a mollusk still inside!
The Home Stealers
Seeing a crab or sea snail crawl along the beach is fun to watch. They often have snuck into the shell home of someone else and pushed them out to take over their new home. Who knew they were little home stealers? As a crab grows larger, it needs a bigger shell to call home. They continually move into different seashells over their lifetime as they grow larger.
Cuttlefish Hotel
Cuttlefish have a large internal cuttlefish bone. This seashell often washes up on shores, as it is very lightweight and buoyant. It then becomes the home to critters on the beach.
The Magnificent Mollusk
Tropical areas have more colorful shells than anywhere else in the world. The mollusk can grow quite large in size. At one time, before ocean art and accessories became so popular, it was common to find seashells the size of basketballs. Nowadays, it is rare to find the really large ones because people search for them to use commercially. Once they have been taken out of our seas and oceans, they are not able to reproduce and add to their species population.
Just remember when you find seashells on the beach to make sure they are vacant. You do not want to take a little guy’s house away from him!
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My kids were always interested to know what had lived in that shell before we picked it up off the beach, sometimes we found out but most times not as this was in the day before the internet. I would think this is a fun activity now for the kids and now they have the internet to help them learn.