These two pictures show the same shell, the Florida Caecum, Caecum floridanum Stimpson, 1851, a tiny gastropod not uncommon on the sandy beaches of SW Florida and that measures no more than 4 mm (a little beyond 1/8 inch). The genus name Caecum means “blind” in Latin, and the word is also used for any structure that ends in a blind tube or pouch. The photo on top was taken under a standard microscope, and the one on the bottom with a scanning electron microscope (SEM), a sophisticated piece of equipment that allows for visualization of great detail at very large magnifications, but at the expense of color: SEMs use electron beams instead of light, and that procedure does not capture color, only surface features.
![](https://static.wixstatic.com/media/7f077a_ccfc38d3b02a4e23a6dae13100818415~mv2_d_1708_1394_s_2.jpg/v1/fill/w_147,h_120,al_c,q_80,usm_0.66_1.00_0.01,blur_2,enc_auto/7f077a_ccfc38d3b02a4e23a6dae13100818415~mv2_d_1708_1394_s_2.jpg)
The Florida Caecum, Caecum floridanum Stimpson, 1851, bottom photo taken with a scanning electron microscope.