I was very fortunate that an iNat friend of mine was kind enough to drive myself and my husband on an iNat outing this Sunday. We stopped at three places, but our main destination was Plumb Beach, Brooklyn, off of the Belt Parkway. Plumb Beach is named after the Beach Plums which used to grow profusely there. Plumb Beach faces across the water to the eastern end of the Rockaway Peninsula.
The beach was very rich in beach drift of all kinds of marine organisms, including 19 species of marine mollusks, but also several species of crabs, as well as other invertebrates, and I even made observations of a few birds and salt-tolerant plants.
I found one shell of a Dove Snail which almost never occurs this far west on Long Island, so that was thrilling.
I also found one valve of a species of Venus Clam which supposedly does not occur at all on the East Coast. -- the Japanese Littleneck, aka the Manilla Clam. I suppose that valve was probably just a remnant of someone's seafood dinner or lunch.
This looks as if it washed up here but these are not known to occur on the East Coast of the US.
Perhaps instead the shell is what is left over from a human’s seafood dinner?? Are these sold as frozen clams? Or stuffed clams?
I did some online research, and I discovered I could order a dozen live clams of this species delivered to me for only $8.00.
And Bryozoa.
There were lots of large empty shells of this species in superb condition on this beach.
We cut them open but there were no embryonic shells inside, so maybe either the baby snails had already hatched out, or perhaps the eggs had not been fertilized in the first place.
Inside a valve of Ensis leei.
A few of the shells and shell fragments that I found on Plumb Beach.
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