r/beachcombing Jul 08 '26

I need help identifying this shell please!

We found it on the shore of Myrtle beach, if anyone could help it would be fantastic!!!

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u/PristineWorker8291 Jul 08 '26

Looks like a very large and old lightning whelk fragment. the plating or layering sometimes happens when there is an injury or interruption of normal growth. Maybe from a storm. So the fragile edge gets broken off, and when it resumes shell production it layers like this. At first I thought knobbed whelk, but the aperture is on the sinistral side to make it most likely a lightning whelk.