Friday, June 29, 2007

Augers



Look at these little guys! The shells are in the Auger family, but I don't know their precise name.

The other thing I don't know is whether these are the critters that are supposed to live in the shell or if they are some type of body-snatchers....oops, I mean shell-snatchers. Something tells me they are an invader.

Right now you can walk out to a sandbar in the Gulf and scoop them up by the handful. If you put them in a bucket of saltwater, you'll swear they are trying out for the WWE! The tiny creatures are not amiable at all. Then again, I'd probably be fighting mad if someone scooped me out of my home and dropped me in a bucket with a bunch of other ill-tempered strangers.

2 comments:

BaysideLife said...

DJ
I've many of these auger shells, collected on my walks along PCola Beaches, but I've never seen marine life in them before. Great picture.

Barrier Island Girl said...

Same here, Bayside Gal. I've collected a lot of augers and never seen anything like this.

People generally make the mistake of picking up/collecting an occupied shell only once. I did it while living in Tennessee and had quite a shock at the jacuzzi one night. I'd brought home a hermit crab by mistake. HA!