Four shells collected at Cape Anne, Massachusetts. The three clustered around the illustration are Common European Periwinkles, Littorina littorea. This winkle, much savored by Old World palates, was first recorded in the Gulf of St. Lawrence in 1840, perhaps arriving via rock ballast in ships. Another source says they may have arrived much earlier, upon drifting logs before the Europeans themselves arived on more ornate drifting logs. However they got here, they’re now established on both U.S. coasts and they tend to be bad news for the ecosystem. We should probably be eating them, too.
The white shell on the left is an Atlantic dogwinkle, Nucella lapillus, one of the native species beset by competition and habitat transformation resulting from the abundance of European periwinkles.
Backyard and Beyond 
0 Responses to “Winkles”