Backyard and Beyond

I was fascinated by the varieties of dead coral found on the beaches.This crab shell was perfectly preserved.In the water of Little Leverick Bay, I picked up a young queen conch, Strombus gigas. This is the animal that supplies conch fritter-makers from the Caribbean to Brooklyn; in some places, it’s over-harvested, and becoming rarer. We saw quite a few on Prickly Pear Island among the turtle grass they favor. This particular snail was alone, but it was quite alive, as it demonstrated when I put it back into the water. The muscle of the “foot” thrust out of the shell to jerk the whole thing several inches further into the waves. And then it did it again, and again. When older, the shell flares out in a great lip. These little ones — this one is about 5″ long — are called “rollers.”