I get asked this question quite a lot so I figured why not create a blog post that answers that question. I’ll keep this short and sweet. Pictured here are all the books I currently use and below the photos is a list of books I’m looking into purchasing that were just recently suggested to me. Also, I’ve listed websites I use. Got a book you’d like to suggest? Feel free to leave a comment.
The open book (lost the book jacket) is the National Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Seashells.
Books on my list to purchase:
Seashells of Southern Florida: Living Marine Mollusks of the Florida Keys and Adjacent Regions: Bivalves by Paula M. Mikkelsen and Rudiger Bieler
Bahamian seashells: A thousand species from Abaco, Bahamas by Colin Redfern
Encyclopedia of Texas Seashells: Identification, Ecology, Distribution, and History (Harte Research Institute for Gulf of Mexico Studies Series) by Tunnell Jr., John W., Andrews, Jean, Barrera, Noe C, Moretzs
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.
Updated Post, Sept. 11, 2025: Learning about olive “forms” has been quite confusing. These brown olives in particular. From what I can gather put simply southeast Florida has 2 species. Note: I’m trying to keep current with the name trails on WoRMS (World Register of Marine Species) : 1) Oliva sayana (Ravenel, 1834) which is the Lettered Olive 2) Oliva nivosa (Marrat, 1871) which is the Netted Olive >> old name is Oliva reticularis and accepted alternative name by WoRMS is Oliva (Americoliva) nivosa
Original Post: The first time I heard of a Fulgurator Olive (Oliva fulgurator, Röding, 1798) was when a friend of mine showed me the one her daughter collected on Sanibel Island and was trying to figure out what it was. The next experience I had with them was finding them myself in dredge piles in Palm Beach! Wow those were the HOT shells to find in the piles there for sure! I pulled lots of them out of the dredge piles in 2 different color forms, at that time not knowing the difference I used the name Fulgurator and Bollingi interchangeably (as most other shellers did at those piles).
Fulgurator Olives in forms bifasciata and formosa. Photo credit Roxann Morin.
When I uploaded those dredging episodes to my YouTube channel, I received some comments that lead me to the correct form names for the ones I found. They were all “Fulgurator” Olives but I had found 2 different “forms” of them. I found the forms bifasciata and form formosa. Which are both brown olives. A bollingi is a form of Fulgurator Olive but the bollingi form is not brown like the ones I found. I have learned that there are about 7 different forms of Fulgurator Olives: bifasciata bollingi circinate formosa jamaicensis olorinella reticularis
In researching these I’ve come across several different name combinations of the 7 different Fulgurator forms. Then I landed on the website “Let’s Talk Seashells” by Marlo F. Krisberg, I was SO happy to find a comprehensive chart on Fulgurators with the 7 different forms of them and that chart page on his site is connected to Jaxshells which goes into even more detail!
In looking at this chart I noticed the Fulgurator form reticularis which is commonly referred to as a Netted Olive (Oliva reticularis) and one comment on my YouTube video about a Fulgurator, was it wasn’t a Fulgurator olive it was Oliva bifasciata but bifasciata IS a “form” of Fulgurator…you see how these names/forms can get confusing? The fact of the matter is that Oliva fulgurator has been presented under several names due to its diverse color variations. It’s like a puzzle of a multiform species.
I’m Roxann and I’ve lived in Florida just about my entire life. I fell in love with shelling during Covid where my kids and I decided to start checking out every beach we could that summer with not much else to do with so many places closed. We would be tourist on our coast; hitting several beaches along the east and then branching out to the west coast of Florida. I found my first “real” shell on Honeymoon Island…it was a Florida Fighting Conch seashell and from that shell on I was hooked!
I’ve been wanting to start a YouTube channel for over 3 years and something just always seemed to get in the way. January of 2024, I put my foot down with myself and started that channel, Florida Beach Walks! My husband was a huge part in that to thank for the constant encouragement over the years–thx Corey! I have lots of shell walks to share and 3 months in to this channel I tell myself, “and why did I wait for so long?!!” Everything in its time I guess and what’s that saying, “better late than never,” lol. So if you like being at the beach, shelling, looking for sea glass, sunrise/sets, checking out the critters etc., then come walk with me alongside some of my exciting beach adventures on YouTube!
