Expertise Needed - Shell Help (unusual location)

[davidjett]

Hi everyone, glad to have found this site! My boys and I stumbled upon it when attempting to identify a shell that was found one day last week while out exploring.

We believe the shell to be a conch shell, not sure of the exact variety though. The thing that is interesting, is that we found the shell embedded in the bank of a fresh water creek here where we live. We are about 110 miles away from the closest beach/ocean with no brackish waters anywhere close to where the shell was found. We live in the Columbia SC vicinity and, as far as I can tell and research, there should be no reason a saltwater shell would have been found exposed in the layers of sediment we are looking at.

Our assumptions are that either (A) the shell is a remnant left over when this area of land was underwater or (B) it is human discard either from current time or from a past time such as from a local Indian tribe.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. My wife and I home school our four boys so we try to make learning both entertaining and fun as well as educational and memorable, this has definitely peaked their curiosity.

Thanks in advance!

Picture 1

Picture 2

Picture 3

Picture 4

[paul monfils]

Hello.  Would like to help, but I cannot open any of your images.  Perhaps you could post them in a different format?  Perhaps as JPEG images?

[davidjett]

Sorry about that and thanks Paul.  I've updated the links to the Google Drive images above. Try the links now as they seem to be working.

[wolfi]

Hi,
reminds me of a slightly bleached specimen of Lentigo lentiginosus (L., 1758) from the Indo-Pacific. Normal hight about 7,5 cm. Family Strombidae. The high end specialists here will tell you better........ .
Kind regards: wolf

[paul monfils]

Yes, a conch, as you suspected. I agree with wolf on the ID.  It's a very common species that can be found in tourist shop shell baskets throughout the U.S.A and probably throughout the world. This specimen is no doubt a fairly recent human discard, since it comes from the other side of the Pacific, and it seems unlikely that early Americans would have access to it.  Here's a page showing a number of specimens.  It isn't a very variable species: http://www.conchology.be/?t=27&family=&k...on_species=

[davidjett]

You guys are awesome! Thanks so much for the information and pointing me in the right direction!  Now..  How to break it to the kiddos??