Agree, now you rarely meet a person who is not at all attracted to display cases on which huge quantities of seashells, pebbles, glass remains perfectly sharpened by salt water and outlandish corals are placed.
And how many of these gifts from the depths of the sea do we bring back every year, returning both from overseas and local resorts? That's right - hundreds! In truth, it has already become a kind of tradition to come back from vacation, taking as a souvenir a piece of that other world, where life-giving rest, relaxing bliss and some special inner freedom reign.
Seashells. general information
In scientific terminology, barnacles (or clams) are the outer hard shells of snails. different forms and contours. They have a certain special gloss, so most are able to shine in the sun.
It should be noted that they all exist in the World Ocean in different environments and at completely different depths.
Many empty shells can be found in bays near rocks, in shallow water, in sand and under mud. From a scientific point of view, seashells, whose names are quite difficult to remember, are of great value in terms of studying ways to adapt to the environment.
This is done by a special and very promising field of science called mariculture. By the way, this term can be literally translated into Russian as “sea culture.” But the collection and study of shells belong to the branches of conchiology.
By the way, it is impossible not to mention that today there are many species in nature that cannot be removed from their place natural habitat Absolutely forbidden. Neglect of this law is severely punished, and violators may be subject to huge fines.
Main types of shellfish
And the oceans, which have a dense shell, colloquially called a shell, usually fall into one of two classes.
- Gastropods that have a solid coil or spiral shape with a hole in the right corner. Some species have a tire that serves as a kind of hatch for closing the shell. Their shell can be either horny or calcareous.
- Bivalve aquatic molluscs, in turn, are distinguished by a shell consisting of two symmetrical parts. Their habitat can be either salty or fresh water.
The shells of the salty waters of the World Ocean are, as a rule, very beautiful and varied. They all differ in their colors, sizes and shapes. Let's take, for example, such a representative as the starfish shell. Almost each of us knows what this species looks like, but at the same time, you must admit, even in our own collected collection We cannot find even two completely identical specimens.
Is it true that the song of the sea can be heard in a shell?
Since childhood, we all know that if you put any, even the smallest, stone snail to your ear, you will hear the sound of the sea. Moreover, many argue that this does not depend in any way on where and when certain seashells were collected. And today several theories have already formed around this very interesting fact.
The first, unjustified theory says that shells supposedly retain the sounds of the seas and oceans. Although it’s sad to say this, this is nothing more than fiction, not supported by science in any way.
The second theory states that when this object is brought to the ear, people hear the sound of blood moving through their own blood vessels. But this fact is quite easy to destroy. For example, you will agree, after intense physical exercise blood circulates throughout the body at a very high speed. In this case, the noise in the shell should change, but it does not.
The third theory says that the shell can hear the sound of air flowing through it. It becomes clear why the sound will be louder if the shell is brought close to the ear, and weaker if held near it. This idea is also refuted if you just place the object in a special soundproof room. In this case, the noise from the shell completely disappears, but the air flows in it remain as before.
After figuring all this out, it becomes clear that the sound of the ocean from the shell is only heard when it is around the shell. The most truthful, fourth theory is based on this.
In fact, the sound of the sea is a modified ambient noise that is reflected from the walls of shells, so objects large sizes it can be heard more clearly. Moreover, the more sounds around, the more clearly it will be heard in the shell. It follows from this that it is a simple resonator chamber.
By the way, to hear the song of the sea, you don’t have to have a shell; you can put an ordinary glass or even your palm to your ear.
and oceans: unusual facts
- What are they? A shell is the external skeleton of a mollusk, which it builds throughout its existence. When a clam grows, its shell also enlarges. Its color depends on the substance that is secreted from the glands, so seashells can be colored very differently; most often, striped, lined and speckled specimens are found. It should be noted that the smallest representatives are visible only through a magnifying glass, while the larger ones sometimes reach meter sizes.
- Not everyone knows that the largest shell in the world is rapan. This ferocious predator has a sharp drill tongue and a muscular leg. He, like everyone else similar species, knows how to “make” pearls. When a foreign body enters the shell of a mollusk, it begins to intensively protect itself with layers of nacre. This is how a pearl of great price appears. This rapan was brought from Pacific Ocean into the Black Sea by accident, after which it took root and changed the ecosystem formed here.
- Are there any special totems? Yes, sure. For example, the cowrie shell has long become a real symbol. In ancient times, it was used instead of money and among many peoples it was considered a sign of special wealth and prosperity. In addition, the scallop shell has long become a kind of talisman for travelers. By the way, not everyone knows that some religions reverence rapana as a symbol of the existence of man and his soul on earth.
Healing properties of shells
You must admit, not everyone has ever heard of them. In the oldest oriental medicine on the planet, the use of rapans for massage is quite common.
But in modern SPA salons, massage with hot shells is now quite successful. This stimulates blood circulation, relaxes muscles and calms the nervous system.
Cosmetology also did not stand aside. In this direction, products are widely used for the preparation of effective anti-aging products, to which microparticles of shells are added as one of the components.
The most expensive shell in the world: what is it?
It is no secret that many famous and very wealthy inhabitants of the planet collect shells, just like us, wandering along the seashore or ocean in search of a particularly unusual specimen.
However the mighty of the world This is why they do it a little differently. They simply buy what others have managed to find.
In general, collecting shells is called a hobby of aristocrats. To expand their collections, they acquire precious specimens different types, families, shapes and colors. For example, the world's most expensive Fulton cyprea shell was sold for US$37,000.
The following mollusks live in the Black Sea:
- teredo and rapana
- Venerka and Donax
- heart shapes and scaparis
- byssus and calyptreas
- stone cutters and folas
- oysters and scallops
We will tell you in more detail about the details of the life of each of these mollusks, the history of origin and appearance in the Black Sea.
Which mollusk in the Black Sea has a drill on its nose?
The little Teredo shipworm was once the terror of everyone traveling the world. This a bivalve mollusk that looks like a worm, with its shell at the front end of the body, drilled many passages in the wood from which the ships were made, and turned them into dust. Teredo eats wood and lives in it. Now people have figured out how to protect the wooden lining of ships with the help of a poisonous impregnation, and the teredo mollusk drills into pieces of wood and tree branches that fall into the sea.
Where does the shipworm come from in the Black Sea?
This is what Mangrove trees look like. The shipworm lives on their roots.
Natural shipworm habitat mangrove forests. Their closest location to the Black Sea is the Persian Gulf. Keeping individuals in ports Persian Gulf reaches 50 per square centimeter. It is believed that it was from here that this mollusk was brought to the Black Sea in the body of merchant ships. More recently, in the 50s of the 20th century, a shipworm destroyed piles in the Black Sea ports in just 2 years. This is not surprising, considering that its length can reach 1 meter; in the Black Sea, the documented length of the shipworm is 62 centimeters, and the channels that it leaves in the wood reach 2 m in length and 5 cm in diameter.
Where did rapana come from in the Black Sea?
These large sea snails with beautiful shells decorated with orange mother of pearl are uninvited guests in our sea. Perhaps they sailed from the Pacific Ocean on the bottom. Rapana females lay eggs on hard objects: on sticks, on the backs of crabs, and even on the shells of their relatives. This is how caviar travels across the seas and waves in hard protective tubes.
In 1947, a new inhabitant was first discovered in the Black Sea - predatory rapana snail.
Which carnivorous mollusk has teeth on its tongue?
The seemingly harmless rapan turned out to be a voracious predator. With his tongue, the radula, he drills into the shells of bivalves, injects poison and paralyzes the inhabitant of the shell. Then he opens the shell and sucks it out.
Who ate all the oysters, scallops and cuttings in the Black Sea?
Although rapan has lived in the Black Sea for only half a century, it has caused great damage to its inhabitants. Unfortunately, in the Black Sea, rapana did not have a worthy opponent who would eat these voracious snails. Rapana is eaten in the Pacific Ocean sea stars, but not salty enough for them. So it turned out that the rapana multiplied and destroyed almost all the scallops, oysters and sea cuttings. And now in the Black Sea there are two times fewer different types of mollusks.
Where is the sea date hiding?
In the soft gray-green marl stones you can see passages drilled by mollusks. This is the work of the stone-cutting mollusk - folas or sea date. Folas has a worm-like body, at the front end of which is a shell with denticles, similar to. With the help of this shell, the sea date drills a hole in the stones in order to hide in it. It feeds on plankton.
When and how does a mollusk get its own home?
Homeless larvae of sea mollusks travel through the sea. At this time, future mollusks feed on particles of dead animals, plants and algae. Gradually the body of the larva changes. It settles to the bottom, develops and builds a house, turning into a mollusk that we can see on the beach.
A barnacle is a shell in which a mollusk lives. He builds his house with the help of his body - the mantle. The edge of the mantle deposits layers of shell, forming annual rings, just like those of trees. Thus, it is possible to determine how old the shell is.
The sea wave decorates the sandy shore with many colorful shells. Often shells have the same shape different colors. For example, Venus can be white and black, orange and yellow. The color of shells depends on their living conditions: normal shells are two-colored, those lying in the ground are black, those thrown back to the bottom are yellow. Most often, white shells are found - their upper layers are erased by the sand.
Who locks their sea house?
On the sandy shore you can find a variety of shells - former houses of bivalve mollusks. Mollusks build them themselves, this is their house and their skeleton, which supports and protects the mollusk from danger. Most often on sandy beach meet donaxes, smooth and shiny, so similar to a butterfly. Multi-colored venus, which children sometimes call sailors for their stripes, literally cover the surf. They become a welcome find hearts and large white and red skafarki, discarded storm wave. All bivalve mollusks, at the moment of danger, slam shut on a lock located at the top of the shell. The teeth fit into the depressions and firmly grip the valves, and strong muscles hold the valves so that the mollusk does not become prey for a crab or. Shells vary in the shape of their locks.
Who walks on one leg along the sea path?
Bivalve molluscs move along the seabed with the help of a muscular leg. They pull it out of the flaps, catch on the sand and are pulled to a new place, leaving furrows in the sand behind them. So on seabed intricate patterns appear.
Why are Black Sea mussels called homebodies?
Mussels - bivalve molluscs, but they cannot swim like scallops or move along the bottom and hide in the ground like other mollusks. Therefore, mussels have adapted to attach their shells to underwater rocks using strong threads that their body produces. Mussels live in colonies and hold on to each other for strength. If the mussels have to move to another place, the mollusk separates a bundle of its threads - the byssus, and then releases new threads and plunges them deep into the ground, like roots. Since mussels are homebodies, they are successfully grown on sea plantations. This mollusk is tasty and very healthy for humans; even medicines are made from it.
What clam wears a hat?
Sometimes on the sandy shore there are shells that look like a small cap. Just think, this is the house of a tiny Chinese cap snail - calyptrea, which sits in a small curl! This mollusk has adapted in its own way to living on soft soil: the wide, light cap does not sink into the sand, and the shape of the cap gives stability to the snail’s house.
If you've ever walked along the beach, you've probably seen seashells lying on the sand where they were washed up by the waves. Such shells are almost always empty - they are the former home of some dead sea animals.
By the way, shells are found in wooded areas, rivers, and ponds. When people talk about shells, they usually mean the soft-bodied animals known as “molluscs.”
Most mollusks have a shell that protects their soft body. The shell is the skeleton of a mollusk. It is a part of the animal, and the mollusk is attached to it by muscles. The soft shellfish inside never leaves its “home.”
The shell is made of limestone by the mollusk itself. Certain glands can take limestone from the water and deposit tiny particles at the edges or along the inside of the shell. As the mollusk grows inside, the shell also increases in size. You can see the growth lines, which are marked by ridges (bulges) running parallel to the outer edge of the shell. You've probably noticed these growth lines on oyster shells. The appearance of other scars is caused by scars on the “mantle” of the mollusk or the muscles of its body. The shell of a mollusk consists of three layers. The outer one is covered with a layer of horny substance, which does not contain lime. Beneath it is a layer of calcium carbonate. The inner layer is the “mother of pearls”, or mother of pearl. It consists of a very thin layer of calcium carbonate and horny substance.
The color of the shell depends on the color of the substance secreted by some glands of the mollusk. Therefore, the shell can be speckled, plain or painted with stripes and lines. Some shells are so tiny that they can only be seen through a magnifying glass, while a giant sea clam can be up to a meter long.
What is a sticky shell?
If you have ever been to the sea and walked near breakwaters, boulders, protective walls, then you have probably seen clinging shells. That “crust” that you probably noticed on breakwaters and boulders is made up of many millions of clinging shells.
A clamshell is just a small mollusk. Once born, they float freely. But, having reached an adult state, they no longer move, but attach to any suitable surface and completely lose the ability to move.
Since they tend to cling not singly, but in millions, they are a serious nuisance for humans. For example, when these barnacles form a crust on a boat's hull, they can reduce its speed by half! In the old days, when ships were very small, shells posed a real danger, making it difficult to control the ship and could even delay it and prevent it from arriving at the port at the appointed time.
Pirates who sailed in the Caribbean were forced to capsize their ships on the shore and clean off the shells. Whalers of old had great difficulty returning home after a two-year voyage because of the enormous quantities of shells stuck to the hull of the ship. Even in our time of modern, powerful ships, shipping worldwide suffers huge losses due to barnacles, which cause loss of time and increase wear and tear on propulsion systems.
There are many varieties of clam shells, including some that prefer to live on rocks rather than wood and metal. As we have already said, just when they are born, they resemble small crabs or lobsters and can move. But as soon as a shell attaches to any surface, it remains there for life!
The attached shell continues to grow a shell that completely covers its body. In this case, its only movable organ is the tentacles or antennae. She has six pairs of these tentacles, which she is able to move in order to reach some small marine organisms and attract them to her.
SINK
the hard coverings of the body of some animals, such as snails, bivalves or barnacles. Of greatest interest, especially from the point of view practical use and collecting, represent calcareous shells of mollusks. To protect your soft vulnerable body from natural enemies mollusks secrete a substance consisting mainly of calcium carbonate and hardens into a material similar in density to marble. They acquired this ability in the early periods of the geological history of the Earth, already by the beginning of the Cambrian (570 million years ago). Rocks of this age contain many of their fossilized shells.
MOLLUSK SHELLS. (Left to right) Busycon contrarium, Aequipecten gibbus, Littorina littorea
Types of shells. There are five main classes of mollusks: bivalves, gastropods, testapods, spadepods and cephalopods. Representatives of each of them have their own characteristic type of shell.
Bivalve. Bivalve shells consist of two halves (valves), connected to each other by an elastic ligament and held in a certain position by interlocking teeth. The hinge line - the side on which the valves are connected - is considered upper, or dorsal (dorsal), and the opposite - where they can diverge - is considered lower, or ventral (ventral). In some species the valves are identical, while in others they differ slightly in size, shape and color. Oysters, clams, mussels and scallops are all part of the bivalves group.
Gastropods. The shells of gastropods, unlike bivalves, are solid, i.e. not divided into flaps. Members of this group, often called snails, can be found on land, in fresh water and in the sea. Usually their shells are twisted clockwise around central axis(column) like a spiral staircase. If you hold such a shell, called right-handed, with the sharp end (top) up, then its “entrance” hole - the mouth - will be on the right. If the mouth is on the left, the shell is called left-handed. At the mouth, there are inner and outer lips, and its lower edge usually bears a projection (anterior canal), which can resemble either a long tube or the curved spout of a teapot. If there are two canals, the second, located in the upper part of the outer lip, is called posterior. Gastropods move with the help of a muscular outgrowth - the leg. When the animal senses danger, it withdraws its leg into the shell; the mouth is closed by an operculum - a small hard formation attached to the back of the leg. The operculum varies in structure, size and shape (according to the opening being closed) among different species and may resemble a thin disc, button or marble plate. Each whorl of the shell is called a whorl, and the last and largest is called the trunk whorl. They can be clearly visible, for example in trumpeters, flattened and almost fused in appearance, like cones, or not noticeable at all from the outside, like in cypras.
Armored. The shells of these mollusks consist of eight overlapping dorsal plates. These animals are also called chitons, since from below, from under the shell, a leathery belt protrudes, reminiscent of the edge of ancient Greek clothing - a chiton. Shellfish usually stay under rocks and in crevices; they are difficult to tear off from the substrate, to which they are firmly attached by the sole of a muscular leg.
Spadefoot. The shells of these mollusks are slightly curved tubes, reminiscent of elephant tusks in shape. Their length ranges from 2.5 to 12.5 cm; some are white and matte, like chalk, others shine like porcelain.
Cephalopods. Cephalopods may be the most interesting of mollusks from an evolutionary point of view. Judging by the fossil remains, they once had shells up to 4.6 m long. Most modern cephalopods have only small internal shell vestiges. Squids, cuttlefish, and octopuses belonging to this class are now protected by their powerful tentacles, camouflage coloring and “ink” curtains released into the water. The only living cephalopods with an external shell are members of the genus Nautilus. The decoration of any collection is the species Nautilus pompilius. Its spiral, iridescent mother-of-pearl shell is composed of a series of chambers and forms a perfect logarithmic spiral; the width of the whorl increases, maintaining a constant ratio to its length. As the body grows, it builds new chambers and moves to live in the last, largest of them.
Shell composition and growth. As clams grow, they secrete a substance that increases the size and thickness of their shells. This secretion, secreted by the fold of skin surrounding the body, called the mantle, consists of calcium carbonate mixed with phosphate and magnesium carbonate. In bivalves, the mantle covers the body from the sides, and in gastropods it forms the fleshy lining of the mouth. The growth lines on bivalves shells run parallel to their outer edge, and in gastropods new whorls are added to the shells. There are three layers in a mollusk shell. The outer (periostracum) is rough and consists of the organic substance conchiolin; the middle, or porcelain-shaped (ostracum), is formed by small prisms of calcite or aragonite, and the inner (hypostracum) is formed by parallel plates of aragonite and is often mother-of-pearl. The pearlescent iridescent shine is due to translucent layers of calcium carbonate. The shapes of shells and the color of their outer surface are extremely varied. Some are no larger than the head of a pin; they are so small that the beauty of their shape cannot be fully appreciated without a magnifying glass. Others, for example, the giant tridacna (Tridacna gigas) from the Indian and Pacific oceans, reach a diameter of 60-120 cm and a weight of 135-180 kg. They gave rise to legends about divers who fell underwater into a trap made from the closed shells of this mollusk.
Spreading. The modern ranges of approximately 50,000 species of marine mollusks depend on the temperature and salinity of the water, as well as the contours of the primordial oceans. Probably the richest source of shells in the world is a wide belt extending from warm waters East Africa through the Indian Ocean to Australia and the South Pacific Islands. Many of their best specimens (cyprias, cones, terebras, venerids) are mined here - off the African coast between Kenya and Mozambique, in the waters off Queensland (Australia) and the tropical seas surrounding some islands of Indonesia, the Philippines and the Ryukyu Archipelago. The second most important is the West Indies region, stretching from Bermuda through the Antilles to Brazil. This area abounds in the shells of molluscs such as Triton's horn, Strombus, Cassis and Fasciolaria. There are several other places in the world where interesting specimens of shell mollusks are found. Since the temperature in the Mediterranean Sea is approximately the same as in the Caribbean, many species of scallops, whelks, fasciolaria and needleworts are found in both these areas. Along the east coast of the United States you can collect beautiful naticids, cones, anomia and olives, left-handed busicones, as well as strombus and graceful angel's wing bivalves. Two small islands located off the west coast of Florida, Sanibel and Captiva, are considered the best places collection of shells in the USA. Off the west coast of the country there are many fairly common species, as well as the rarer abalone and sea cuttings. There are approximately 50,000 known taxa of freshwater mollusks, primarily classified as bivalves and gastropods. They live not only in rivers and lakes, but also in hot springs, caves, at the base of waterfalls, and even in frozen ponds in polar regions. Most land mollusks are pulmonate gastropods - snails with a special respiratory apparatus. Their shells are often as brightly colored as those of the most colorful marine species. These snails live among moist vegetation, mainly in trees; one of their most famous types is grape snail(Helix aspersa) is considered a delicacy in France.
Usage. The history of shell use goes back over 10,000 years. Red cassis from the South Pacific are found in prehistoric Cro-Magnon caves in Europe. Their presence thousands of kilometers from their homeland suggests that they served as money, which means that trade between these widely separated areas inexplicably existed already in the early stages of human history. Primitive, undoubtedly used shells as decorations. Shells with sharp edges, such as some common bivalve shells, were used as cutting tools. Particularly interesting is the role of shells as currency. In the past, such “money” was widespread in America, Asia, Africa and Australia. The most valued in this sense was the cypraea moneta, or cowrie. Even today on some islands of the Pacific and Indian Oceans The shells of another cowrie species, C. annulus, are used as money. Among the peoples of Central Africa, the possession of bundles of large cowries served as evidence of personal or tribal wealth, and in West Africa these shells were used as payment until the mid-19th century. In some areas of the African continent, for example in the territory of present-day Angola, coins made from the cut shells of the land snail Achatina monetaria were common. On the islands north of New Guinea, shells were also often ground to a suitable size for use as currency of various denominations. Until 1882, trade in the Solomon Islands was carried out using such “coins” of a standard shape and a certain size. Shell money laid the foundation of the economy North American Indians. The shells of spadefoot animals (for example, the sea tooth - Dentalium pretiosum) were used as coins long before the emergence of the Hudson's Bay Company. A string of 25 of these large shells was enough to buy a canoe. A remarkable achievement of the “coining” of the American aborigines was the so-called. wampum. It consisted of polished cylindrical pieces of whelk shells, Mercenaria mercenaria and Littorina littorea, strung on leather straps. Typically, this money was made in coastal areas, where the highly prized purple mercenaria shells and giant white whelks were more readily available. From here the ready money was transported deep into the country. Shells have been used for other purposes for centuries. Collections discovered in Roman dwellings indicate that they were collected already in ancient times. Medieval pilgrims wore the St. James comb (Pecten jacobeus) on their hats as a sign that they had crossed the sea and reached the Holy Land. Large shells of cyprians, whelks and other mollusks were often depicted by Renaissance artists. A famous example serves as a huge comb in Botticelli's painting The Birth of Venus.
LITERATURE
Burukovsky R. What the shells sing about. Kaliningrad, 1977
Collier's Encyclopedia. - Open Society. 2000 .
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