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Saturday, March 12, 2011

Pink (s)lip service and a true conch: The Queen Conch (Lobatus gigas). WWF maximum cards/ maxicards/ dorincards about Nevis.


What exactly is "a true conch"?
That's NOT a good question.
Why?
Because "The term true conchs, being a common name, does not have an exact meaning. It may refer generally to any of the Strombidae[1] but sometimes is used more specifically to include onlyStrombus and Lambis[2] or just Strombus itself.[3]"
?

Anyway.
"Lobatus gigascommonly known as the queen conch, is a species of edible sea snail, a marine gastropod mollusk in the family of true conchs, the Strombidae. This species is one of the largest mollusks native to the Tropical Northwestern Atlantic, from Bermuda to Brazil, reaching up to 35.2 cm (13.9 in) in shell length.
The queen conch is herbivorous and lives in seagrass beds, although the exact habitat varies during the different stages of its development. The adult animal has a very large, solid and heavy shell, with knob-like spines on the shoulder, a flared thick outer lip and a characteristic pink-colored aperture (opening). The flared lip is completely absent in younger specimens. The external anatomy of the soft parts of L. gigas is similar to that of other snails in the same family: it has a long snout, two eyestalks with well-developed eyes and additional sensory tentacles, a strong foot and a corneous sickle-shaped operculum."

What you see above it's just a shell "corporation".
Wanna see the corpore/corpus/soft body?
Here:
A legitimate question is: what the...hell are those?
Can you handle the truth? Jack Nicholson said you can't!
Here:
"A drawing of an adult male Lobatus gigas (from Duclos in Chenu, 1844) showing the external soft parts including the spade-shaped penis on the left. Separate details show the mouth, and both sides of the claw-like operculum."


"Nevis (pronounced /ˈniːvɪs/) is an island in the Caribbean Sea, located near the northern end of the Lesser Antilles archipelago, about 350 km east-southeast of Puerto Rico and 80 km west ofAntigua. The 93 km² island is part of the inner arc of the Leeward Islands chain of the West Indies. The capital of Nevis is Charlestown.

Nevis, along with Saint Kitts, forms the Federation of Saint Kitts and Nevis. The two islands are separated by a shallow two-mile (3.22 km) channel, known as "The Narrows". Nevis is conical in shape, with a volcanic peak, Nevis Peak, at its centre. The island is fringed on its western and northern quadrants by sandy beaches that are composed of a mixture of white coral sand with brown and black sand, eroded and washed down from the volcanic rocks that make up the island. The gently-sloping coastal plain (0.6 miles/1 km wide) has natural fresh-water springs, as well as non-potable volcanic hot springs, especially along the western coast."

"Alexander Hamilton, the statesman and one of the founding fathers of the United States, was born on Nevis around 1755, and spent a significant part of his childhood there. His father was a trader from Scotland, his mother was from Nevis. The place of his birth currently holds the Nevis Island Assembly Chambers and the Museum of Nevis History."

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Happy Pink Saturday!

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4 comments:

  1. I have tasted conch and its pretty good! Way TMI about the male conch and pictures however!

    ReplyDelete
  2. @viridian You don't know Jack, but Jack [Nicholson] knows you...:)
    Just kidding, viridian. :)

    ReplyDelete
  3. I love your post..it's the third Queen Conch I've seen and sadly they reminded me of the shell that my grandfather left to me when he passed away. He found his in Vallarta in the 40's and every time we visited grandpa, I would hang on to that shell. Seven years ago when we moved to San Antonio, I dropped it and it broke in to many pieces. I know I can go find another one but it won't mean the same.

    As for tasting conch...not yet!

    Happy PS
    Deanna :D

    ReplyDelete
  4. I imagine it's a good thing that creatures that look like that hide in shells. But they make it up with the beauty of their shells. Great post!

    ReplyDelete

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