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Shark's
teeth and bay scallop - some of those black things in
the sand are real old petrified shark's teeth, like a million
years old. They can get pretty big, too
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Knobbed
whelk - our Carolina conch, and edible just like its relatives
in the Caribbean. They eat shellfish and dead marine animals.
Large, up to 12 inches in length.
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Olive
shell - a big snail that lives out in deeper water. It's
sometimes called the 'lettered olive shell' because sometimes
the markings look like writing.
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Cockle
shell - One of the most common on Carolina beaches. Wide
variety of colors and sizes. Edible, frequently eaten in Europe,
less frequently here.
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Quahog
Clam - or hard-shelled clam, are most common, and are
the chowder clams.
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Quartz
rock - When the Appalachian mountains were young rocks
would tumble into streams and rivers and out to the ocean,
then washing up on the beach.
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Ribbed
mussel - You'll find these over in the marshes. Edible
and sought after by man and raccoon and shore birds.
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Angel
wings - a very fragile shell, it is unusual to find one
that has survived pounding in the surf. Like mussels, this
bivalve is edible, too.
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Red
algae - and a green algae called 'sea lettuce' blows in
from the Sargasso Sea, about a thousand miles away.
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Conglomerate
- it's like a marine life condo, with layer after layer of
shell forms and smaller critters of some sort.
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Mother
stone - well, it looks like a mud stone with worm holes.
Much revered by ancient cultures as talismans related to goddess
religions.
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Turkey
Wing - a peculiar shell, almost rectangular, and heavy,
and very numerous around New River Inlet. Once you learn to
spot them, it seems, they're everywhere.
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Moon
shell - a predator snail, this gastropod rasps through
a clam's shell and sucks the clam out through the hole.
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Cross-barred
Venus clam - easy to identify because the radial ridges
are crossed by concentric bars across the face of the outer
shell. Edible, excellent in chowder.
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Razor
clam - shave with them? Maybe, the edges are very sharp.
Edible, and sought after, but you have to be pretty quick
to catch them.
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Green
algae - another form of algae that usually anchor themselves
to the sea bed but sometimes break off and float ashore.
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Dead
man's fingers - a sponge, I think, green when alive. Frequently
washed up in smaller pieces.
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Sea
urchin - this is the sea urchin skeleton. This one is
cemented together in hard sand on its way to forming limestone
in about a million years.
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Coral
- these are skeletal remains of a coral condominium, a community
of coral polyp animals that live together.
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