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Seashell Shack :: Conchs
There are about 30 different species of conchs around the world. They are usually found in muddy brackish waters especially around mangrove trees. They are carnivoruos and hunt for clams and oysters.
The pink Queen Conch is one of the largests conchs and is often used in decorating.
Lister's conch
CONCHS are marsh snails of the order Mollusca, which contains clams, oysters, chitons, squids, and octopuses. Closely related to slugs, limpets, and freshwater snails, they are soft-bodied animals lacking vertebrae and having more or less of a head, with a pair of eyes, a muscular foot for locomotion, and gills. The shell is spirally coiled, and the animal manufactures the calcium shell through chemical secretions of its body. A horny cover or operculum covers the opening of the shell and protects the animal, and is also used for moving, digging and sometimes in fighting and obtaining prey. The sexes are in separate animals, and eggs are laid in tough capsules. The necklace like spirals of flat disks sometimes seen along shore are the egg cases of the whelk, one of the common conchs. Sometimes the egg cases are fan-shaped or flower-shaped. Conchs are often predaceous but may scrape algae from rocks and the bottom, or they may probe the soft bottom muds and sands for food.
One of the commonest snails in the West Indies is the queen conch,Strombus gigs, which is widely renowned as a source of food and for its beauty as a souvenir. Its length sometimes exceeds 15 inches and it is one of the largest conchs in the United States. The heavy, flaring lip varies from a pale pink near the edge to a rich rose toward the inner parts. It is commonly found over turtle grass beds, where it appears camouflaged by dense growths of fouling organism on the shell. But sharp-eyed natives take large quantities of them in shallow water using glass-bottom buckets and conch hooks or nets, while many conchs are taken while diving. It is certainly one of the important staple seafood’s of the West Indies. Bahamians sometimes use them for dinner horns, for baiting lobster and fish traps, and as hook-and-line bait for reef fishes.
Piles of conch shells are common in the Caribbean where Islanders utilize the mollusk as food and bonefish bait.
The helmet conch (Cassis) is also a snail, somewhat triangular in shape, and having a massive shell. It is more often found on sandy bottom than the queen conch, and, while edible, it is somewhat bitter and difficult to remove from the shell for food. A species occurs in the Caribbean, and another is found in the Mediterranean, where it is used extensively in making cameos.
The left handed whelk (Busycon) is a common snail along the East Coast of the U.S. and the Gulf of Mexico. Its shell is more delicate than the queen conch or helmet shell and is pale with irregular, brownish-red stripes running lengthwise. Common over mud and sand-mud bottoms, it is a scavenger and predator as well. It is eaten to some extent, and about a half million pounds are sold annually, obtained largely from New England, the middle Atlantic Coast, and Chesapeake Bay. Eaten fried and in chowder, called "scungilli" it is also used for baiting crab traps.
The horse conch (Fasciolaria gigantea) is a large, orange-colored snail found in Florida, sometimes growing to nearly 18 inches. It has a long spire at either end and is tapered nearly symmetrically. The flesh is bitter and seldom eaten. -D.ds. from McClane's New Standard Fishing Encyclopedia
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