Update Sept. 11, 2025: Recently I’ve learned that there are false Large/Rosy Strigilla’s too. I’m not quite good at the identification of the difference—one difference is in the scaring where the mollusk was attached to the shell. Here is a graphic I made based on the information found on Mattesonart.com
Original Post: Oh, how I love picking up these little pink shells—Rose Petal Tellins! I find a lot of them on the west coast of Florida. In my experience at Fort Myers Beach and Tigertail Beach on Marco Island I seem to find them in more abundance than other west coast beaches. How fun these are to find—that pretty pop of pink in the sand. I’ve ran into a few over my way on my east coast beaches too, but I noticed that they were more circular in shape and smaller, so I called them the east coast version of a rose petal…until!
On one of my YouTube beach walks I was featuring one of these cute little babies and a fellow shelling channel, “Shell Stories” commented on my video and said that he thinks the cute little pink circular shell I mentioned was a “Large Strigilla” instead. He was correct! WOW how awesome to realize that my east coast version of a rose petal was actually a different species altogether, but they are both a part of the same family, “Tellinidae.”
The Rose Petal Tellin, Eurytellina lineata (Turton, 1819) has a slight triangle shape and length of 1–1.5 inches long. These are pleasantly pink shells but they also have a white presentation, sometimes with a splash of pink at the umbo of the shell (the hinge “tip”). Typically found on the west coast of Florida but can be found on the east coast too (distribution: Western Central Atlantic).
The Large Strigilla, Strigilla carnaria (Linnaeus, 1758) has a circular shape and length of 0.5–1 inch long. These are pink to pale pink. Found on the east coast of Florida (distribution: North America).
In these photos you can see the differences in these two shells. So happy to have learned that my little pink rose petals I was finding on the east coast of Florida were actually Large Strigillas.
