Have you seen Thrush Cowries on the west coast of Florida?
We have a request for our followers and shell enthusiasts collecting and beachcombing along the west coast of Florida...
Author Archives: José H. Leal
Shell of the Week: The Widemouth Rock Snail
Plicopurpura patula (Linnaeus, 1758), is a gastropod of the family Muricidae that may reach almost 10 cm (about 4 inches) in size...
Semeles of Southwest Florida
Check out the well-known and some more obscure shallow-water semeles (family Semelidae) living along the coast of Southwest Florida:...
Mollusk of the Year 2025!
For a few years now, the Senckenberg Museum Frankfurt and Unitas Malacologica have been promoting the election of “Mollusks of the Year.”...
Shell of the Week: The Stocky Cerith
Cerithium litteratum could just as well be called the “Lettered Cerith,” as one of the meanings of the Latin word litteratum is...
Shell Growth and Repair
Another cool production from ChangingSeas.tv (WPBT, South Florida PBS) starring yours truly, this one a short clip about shell growth...
Scallops of Southwest Florida
It's scallops time! These are the scallops (family Pectinidae) that may be found on the shores of Southwest Florida: 1 – Atlantic Calico...
Shell of the Week: The False Angel Wing
Hello! A member of the Venus clam family Veneridae, Petricolaria pholadiformis gets its name from a superficial similarity with the...
Fossil Cone Shells and UV Light
Last September 13 I discussed how ultraviolet light (UV, aka “black light”) reveals structurally distinctive shell parts, using as an...
Mussels of Southwest Florida
This is a sampling of the local species of the family Mytilidae, which are almost always neglected in private shell collections. (1)...