{"id":1910,"date":"2008-12-29T18:32:39","date_gmt":"2008-12-29T23:32:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/?p=1910"},"modified":"2008-12-29T18:32:39","modified_gmt":"2008-12-29T23:32:39","slug":"something-sinister-this-way-cometh-lightning-whelk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/?p=1910","title":{"rendered":"Something Sinister This Way Cometh &#8211; Lightning Whelk"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/12\/whelk-lightning-29-dec-08-003-840.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-1911\" title=\"whelk-lightning-29-dec-08-003-840\" src=\"http:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/12\/whelk-lightning-29-dec-08-003-840.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"900\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/12\/whelk-lightning-29-dec-08-003-840.jpg 840w, https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/12\/whelk-lightning-29-dec-08-003-840-166x300.jpg 166w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"TEXT-ALIGN: center\"><strong><em>Lightning Whelk (Busycon perversum)\u00c2\u00a0from Vanderbilt Beach<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Here comes a southern sinister snail to\u00c2\u00a0greet the New Year.\u00c2\u00a0 Large local whelks, channeled and knobbed, found in the Great White North of Cape Cod\u00c2\u00a0are considered right-handed; that is, when the whelk is held with the spire up and the siphonal canal down, the shell\u00c2\u00a0exhibits a dextral aperture.\u00c2\u00a0 For more information about these local northern whelks, see <a title=\"Permanent Link to The Large and the Small of It (Whelks)\" rel=\"bookmark\" href=\"http:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/?p=1756\" target=\"_blank\">The Large and the Small of It (Whelks)<\/a>.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0From Vanderbilt Beach in North Naples, Florida comes a more sinister snail.\u00c2\u00a0 The lightning whelk, when held in the same orientation as described above, is considered left-handed with\u00c2\u00a0a sinistral opening.\u00c2\u00a0 It surely earns its scientific name &#8220;<em>perversum<\/em>.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/12\/whelks-29-dec-08-002-fix-840.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-1912\" title=\"whelks-29-dec-08-002-fix-840\" src=\"http:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/12\/whelks-29-dec-08-002-fix-840.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"370\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/12\/whelks-29-dec-08-002-fix-840.jpg 840w, https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/12\/whelks-29-dec-08-002-fix-840-300x222.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"TEXT-ALIGN: center\"><strong><em>Lightning Whelk (left) and Channeled Whelk (right)<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The lightning whelk is a predatory snail that can be found as far north as New Jersey to Florida and the Gulf states in the south.\u00c2\u00a0 They prefer sandy and muddy bottoms of shallow embayments, but\u00c2\u00a0choose deeper waters than knobbed whelks.\u00c2\u00a0 Lightning whelks are large predators who&#8217;s principal prey\u00c2\u00a0include bivalves.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/12\/whelks-29-dec-08-003-fix-840.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-1914\" title=\"whelks-29-dec-08-003-fix-840\" src=\"http:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/12\/whelks-29-dec-08-003-fix-840.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"260\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/12\/whelks-29-dec-08-003-fix-840.jpg 840w, https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/12\/whelks-29-dec-08-003-fix-840-300x156.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"TEXT-ALIGN: center\"><strong><em>Channeled Whelk (left) and Lightning Whelk (right)<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Another difference between lightning and channeled &amp; knobbed whelks is that lightning whelks have lower or flatter spires.\u00c2\u00a0 They are all edible species and have been historically consumed by humans.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/12\/whelk-lightning-29-dec-08-001-840.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-1915\" title=\"whelk-lightning-29-dec-08-001-840\" src=\"http:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/12\/whelk-lightning-29-dec-08-001-840.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"882\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"TEXT-ALIGN: center\"><strong><em>Lightning Whelk (Busycon perversum)<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The lightning whelk is the state shell of Texas.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Lightning Whelk (Busycon perversum)\u00c2\u00a0from Vanderbilt Beach Here comes a southern sinister snail to\u00c2\u00a0greet the New Year.\u00c2\u00a0 Large local whelks, channeled and knobbed, found in the Great White North of Cape Cod\u00c2\u00a0are considered right-handed; that is, when the whelk is held with the spire up and the siphonal canal down, the shell\u00c2\u00a0exhibits a dextral aperture.\u00c2\u00a0 For [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[824],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1910"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1910"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1910\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1921,"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1910\/revisions\/1921"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1910"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1910"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1910"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}