Whelk or Nassarius

[JamesCameron1]

Long story short... I ordered 8 Nassarius snails from a company here in Florida. Well I've noticed that 3 of them never really venture into the sand and prefer to stay on the rock. One of them seems to really enjoy harassing my other snails and he hangs around my leafy jewel box clam a lot. That got me thinking... did they sell me whelks? I've seen the articles about identifying them and I'm still having trouble. They do sort of burrow into the sand when I drop them, but they only seem to half burrow.

Here is a picture I grabbed last night.

 

[TheEngineer]

Welcome to R2R!

That looks like a whelk to me. Can you get a picture of the bottom of it? The door is a definitive way to tell.

 

[JamesCameron1]

They appear to have a greenish looking bit on their tails... you can actually see it on the picture I posted just behind its foot. Is that the door?

 

[nautical_nathaniel]

That is a whelk, jagged edge of shell mouth and patterned rostrum (snout thingy).

 

[JamesCameron1]

 

[JamesCameron1]

So basically I paid for janitors and got assassins instead? lol

 

[TheEngineer]

Yep, that's a whelk.

 

[JamesCameron1]

Thanks guys! At least they are easy to catch

 

[nautical_nathaniel]

Thanks guys! At least they are easy to catch

Find a reefer near your with pufferfish or trigger fish and enjoy the show!

 

[JamesCameron1]

Find a reefer near your with pufferfish or trigger fish and enjoy the show!

I was thinking that, or bringing them to a LFS to sell as food lol