Organism of the Week - The Queen Conch
The Strombus Gigas, or more commonly known as the queen conch or the pink conch, is in the Animalia kingdom, the Mollusca phylum, the Gastropoda class, the Neotaenioglossa order, the Strombidae family, the Strombus genus, and the Gigas species.
The queen conch is a marine gastropod mollusk with soft bodies and a large, beautiful spiral-shaped shell used for protection. Their shells are built from calcium carbonate that is extracted from the sea. The color is pale to bright pink with hues of yellow, peach, and cream with wide flaring lip. Inside the shell is where the organism lives with a head and two tentacles and at the lip of the shell is a large foot. One tentacle has eyes and the other has the senses of touch and smell. The queen conch reaches up to 12 inches (30.4 cm) long and weighs up to 5 pounds (2.3 kg) and they live 20-30 years in deeper waters. To move, they “leap” by uses their claw-like operculum to dig and push into the sand causing them to be thrown forward. The pink conchs beautiful shells are collected by people and are used for jewelry they’re also eaten by both humans and animals which contribute to their decrease in population. Their main predators are loggerhead turtles, nurse sharks, snails, blue crabs, eagle rays, spiny lobsters, crustaceans, and humans. Some queen conches produce very rarely, natural pearls that can be white, brown, orange, or pink. The pearls are porcelain-like and have a silky glimmer and a wavy pattern.
Queen conches are found in warm, shallow water usually not deeper than 70 feet (21 meters) in coastal waters of northern South America, north through the Caribbean and the Bahamas to south Florida and Bermuda. They live in seagrass meadows such as turtle grass or manatee grass, coral rubble, or on reefs.
The pink conch reproduces through internal fertilization during the summer. About three days later, the female lays 180,000 to 750,000 eggs in very long, gelatinous strands covered in sand for camouflage so they won't get eaten. The eggs hatch after about five days spending about 18 to 40 days floating and feeding on phytoplankton until they settle on the ocean floor and change into the adult form. When the conch is 2 to 3 months old, their shells are white and when they are 5 to 6 months old they get brown stripes. During their first year, they live under the sand during the day and come out to feed on the surface of the sand at night. When they reach one year old, they are about 10 centimeters and their shell develops pointed spines. When they’re three to four years old their shell forms a broad, flared lip and it continues thickening until it’s about 5 millimeters meaning it’s fully grown when they’re about 5 years old.
The pink conches are herbivores and their diet consists of algae, detritus, grasses, and floating organic debris. To eat, they use a radula, a rough tongue-like organ that has thousands of denticles.
Fun Fact- It’s a myth that you can hear the sound of the ocean when you listen into a conch shell, it’s actually the sound of blood rushing through the veins in your head.
https://www.keywestaquarium.com/queen-conch
http://www.sms.si.edu/irlspec/Strombus_gigas.htm
http://www.karipearls.com/extremely-rare-queen-conch-6-x-4-mm-natural-pearl1.html
http://www.naturefoundationsxm.org/education/queen_conch/about_the_queen_conch.htm
http://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/pr/species/invertebrates/queen-conch.html
http://ian.umces.edu/imagelibrary/displayimage-toprated-0-7617.html
