{"id":4245,"date":"2010-02-24T12:00:09","date_gmt":"2010-02-24T17:00:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/?p=4245"},"modified":"2010-02-24T15:42:06","modified_gmt":"2010-02-24T20:42:06","slug":"florida-fighting-conchs-on-gulf-coast","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/?p=4245","title":{"rendered":"Florida Fighting Conchs on Gulf Coast"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Florida Fighting Conch or Extraterrestrial Alien<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Wow!\u00c2\u00a0 The Florida fighting conch (Strombus alatus<\/em>) looks for all the world like a scary predator from an early\u00c2\u00a0Roger Corman\u00c2\u00a0horror\u00c2\u00a0movie or perhaps an alien invader from\u00c2\u00a0the 1960s,\u00c2\u00a0pre-special effects Outer Limits series.\u00c2\u00a0 Note\u00c2\u00a0its bizarre sensory tentacles framing its proboscis.<\/p>\n

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Florida Fighting Conch on Vanderbilt Beach<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

A small-to-medium sized conch, Strombus alatus<\/em> measures three-to-four inches long with a beautiful blended color pattern of light tan to deep, almost reddish brown.<\/p>\n

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Florida Fighting Conch in Surf<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Conchs and whelks burrow into the sand of the surf zone and surface for foraging and other activities as the tide recedes.\u00c2\u00a0 Turtle Journal’s Sue Wieber Nourse found this fighting conch on the falling morning tide.<\/p>\n

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Florida Fighting Conch, Spire Up, Siphon Down<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The spire at the top of the Florida fighting conch\u00c2\u00a0tends to be lighter colored with knobs along the ridges.<\/p>\n

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Backside of Florida Fighting Conch <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

A\u00c2\u00a0backside look at\u00c2\u00a0shell, spire and knobs.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

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\u00c2\u00a0Live Florida Fighting Conch<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Fighting conchs earned their\u00c2\u00a0reputation with aggressive behavior in response to interference by\u00c2\u00a0human collectors and other annoying predators.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0Luckily for\u00c2\u00a0Turtle Journal, Florida’s winter cold snap has mitigated this reputed fighting spirit.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

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Fighting Conchs Rise from Sand on Receding Tide<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

As the Turtle Journal team strolled Vanderbilt Beach this February, we encountered lots and lots of Florida fighting conchs\u00c2\u00a0rising from the beach sand as\u00c2\u00a0each tide receded.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Florida Fighting Conch or Extraterrestrial Alien Wow!\u00c2\u00a0 The Florida fighting conch (Strombus alatus) looks for all the world like a scary predator from an early\u00c2\u00a0Roger Corman\u00c2\u00a0horror\u00c2\u00a0movie or perhaps an alien invader from\u00c2\u00a0the 1960s,\u00c2\u00a0pre-special effects Outer Limits series.\u00c2\u00a0 Note\u00c2\u00a0its bizarre sensory tentacles framing its proboscis. Florida Fighting Conch on Vanderbilt Beach A small-to-medium sized conch, Strombus […]<\/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\/4245"}],"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=4245"}],"version-history":[{"count":27,"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4245\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4294,"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4245\/revisions\/4294"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4245"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4245"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4245"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}