The Beach Academy

A seashell isn’t an animal. It’s a portable home for a wide variety of animals. The animals that naturally live in these homes are mollusks.
That said, not all mollusks use a shell. The cephalopod family, which includes the octopus and squid, don’t use a mobile home to keep them safe. Instead, they use other means of defense, like their ink or poisonous suction cups on their tentacles

Aren’t seashells pretty? They often display a wide array of colors and unique patterns. However, it turns out those beautiful designs aren’t for display only.
Scientists believe that mollusks use these patterns and colors as engineering blueprints. The design lets the animal figure out where to place their mantle, ensuring they grow their shell in the right spots.

Found a beautiful seashell while walking down the beach? Great, but how do you tell what kind of animal it was for?
Seashell identification is no easy task. Let’s get that little hurdle out of the way. This is because there are possibly over 200,000 mollusks in the world and all of them create unique types of shells.

Remember a while back we mentioned how seashells are great for amplifying ambient sounds? This same property makes them ideal wind instruments. Many places across the world, such as Japan and the Caribbean, use seashells for musical purposes.
Perhaps the most popular instrument made from seashells is the conch. People also refer to it as a seashell horn. There are other instruments to try out, like seashell flutes from Japan or seashell ocarinas.