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Expertise Needed - Shell Help (unusual location)
02-24-2015, 11:52 PM, (This post was last modified: 02-25-2015, 02:31 PM by davidjett.)
#1
Photo  Expertise Needed - Shell Help (unusual location)
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!

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02-25-2015, 01:54 PM,
#2
RE: Expertise Needed - Shell Help (unusual location)
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?
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02-25-2015, 02:31 PM,
#3
RE: Expertise Needed - Shell Help (unusual location)
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.
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02-25-2015, 07:54 PM,
#4
RE: Expertise Needed - Shell Help (unusual location)
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
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02-26-2015, 03:28 AM, (This post was last modified: 02-27-2015, 05:23 AM by paul monfils.)
#5
RE: Expertise Needed - Shell Help (unusual location)
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=
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02-26-2015, 06:48 AM,
#6
RE: Expertise Needed - Shell Help (unusual location)
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??  Wink
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