THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, July 17, 1994 TAG: 9407150278
SECTION: CAROLINA COAST PAGE: 32 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY LOU ELLIOTT, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 76 lines
One morning when Julie and I were taking a morning stroll on the beach we stopped to collect some shells that had washed up on the sand.
That's when we found the whelk egg case.
Perhaps you have found them on the beach - long, curled white and ivory strands that have little rounded cases attached to them.
Julie was interested in the cases and remarked that her sons Tyler, Teddy and Tucker had found several while playing on the beach. But she didn't know what they were. And she would not let them take the cases home.
I explained that these were the whelk's way of laying eggs. Each little case, or sack, had baby whelks inside. I held the strand we had found on the beach up toward the sun so the light would go through it.
Sure enough, we could see the shadow of a baby whelk inside one case. The light also revealed the hole that the baby whelk uses to escape from the case after it has hatched and is ready to go out into the water.
When we got back to the house, Julie told the boys all about the cases and showed them how to look through them to find the babies left inside.
Unfortunately, the babies were not alive, so they will not grow up into larger snails that have prettily colored shells.
Patricia Raves, an educator at the North Carolina Aquarium on Roanoke Island, provided some information on whelks and their egg cases. She found the information in ``The Seaside Naturalist'' by Deborah Coulombe.
Here are some facts about whelks:
Whelks, which are really snails, live in the waters along the United States from New England to Florida.
They range in size from 1.5 inches for a fully grown Atlantic dogwinkle, to 4 inches for a New England Neptune, to 6 inches for a Lightning whelk and 8 inches for a Knobbed whelk.
Their favorite foods are clams, mussels and barnacles. One large clam a month usually satisfies a whelk's appetite.
The color of a whelk's shell, usually white with brown bands, comes from the food it eats. If the dog whelk eats a lot of mussels it will have a dark colored shell. If it eats a lot of barnacles, it will have a white shell.
To eat a clam, the snail in the whelk wraps its foot around the clam and then using its own shell, pries open the clam.
The female whelk lays long strings of the plastic-like capsules. Each of the rounded capsules can contain 20 to 100 eggs.
The egg strand stays in the water by attaching one end of the string to the bottom of the ocean. When it comes loose, the strand of cases washes up on shore. MEMO: The North Carolina Aquarium on Roanoke Island has exhibits on aquatic
life. There is an admission fee. Hours are 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.,
Monday-Saturday; 1 p.m. to 5 p.m., Sunday. It's located on Airport Road
off U.S. Route 64/264 in Manteo. For information, call 473-3493.
To learn more about whelks and other things you can find on the
seashore, the folks at Manteo Booksellers recommend the following books
for children and their parents:
``Seashells in My Pocket, A Child's Nature Guide to Exploring the
Atlantic Coast,'' by Judith Hansen. Has line illustrations. Appalachian
Mountain Club Books. Price: $10.95.
``Discover Nature at the Seashore,'' by Elizabeth P. Lawlor. Has
detailed line drawings. Published by Stackpole Books. Price: $12.95.
``The Seaside Naturalist'' by Deborah Coulombe. The book has lots of
simple line illustrations of specimens. Published by Simon and Shuster.
Price: $15.
``The Park Ranger Guide to Seashores,'' by Arthur P. Miller Jr. and
Marjorie L. Miller. Has black and white photos. Published by Stackpole
Books. Price: $12.95.
ILLUSTRATION: Staff drawing by JANET SHAUGHNESSY
by CNB