Taryn The Shell

31/05/2026

🐚 at beach side cafe in Perth
Shell o'clock / it's shell time 🐚

31/05/2026

The Shell 🐚 Books 📚

📖 Shell
✒️ Alex Arthur
🏷 Non-Fiction 1989
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One of the things I like about this book is the inclusion of everything we call shell, like crabs and turtles, not just molluscs. It offers a comprehensive look at molluscs too including land and freshwater, not just ocean creatures. The photos are big, bright and clear with some demonstrating life-size scale. I think it can appeal to a wide range of ages and knowledge level. In the end I only marked it down 1 shell because it encourages shell collecting.

4 / 5 shells in my rating 🤓

31/05/2026

🃏 Week 22 of 2026 from the Broome Shells deck is...
Trochus shell in the Gastropod suit ♦

The Trochus or top-shell is cone shaped like a spinning top toy or witch's hat. I like to say that the mollusc animal (like a snail) grows the shell spiral on top of itself. It's a familiar form worldwide, and are also known in the Kimberley for being harvested (now farmed), then cut and polished by Bardi Jawi people at Ardyaloon (One Arm Point) Hatchery, up the Dampier Peninsula, about 220km North of Broome. They grow to as big as your hand and quite heavy because the shell is thick, containing layers of nacre (mother-of-pearl) which was used for making buttons (recently) and Indigenous tools and adornments for thousands of years. Trochus are herbivores, living on the seabed or coral reef, eating algae (eg. seaweed) and plants such as seagrass. The base of the shell is nearly flat. When alive the mollusc has an operculum attached to its foot, the part that helps the snail move around, which can retract into the shell to protect itself. In the photo you can see the colour changes as the shell gets bigger. It started life as a teeny tiny shell, just the top tip of this shell which is almost transparent. The animal achieves reproductive maturity around 2 years old and can live for more than 10 years, they have internal growth rings that can be seen when cut open. Reproduction happens via 'nocturnal broadcast spawning' and external fertilisation. As the animal grows, it adds calcium carbonate from its environment to the edge of its shell in a right-handed, clockwise / dextral direction. Growing around, bigger, heavier and older.

Want to play? Pick which card to see next 👉🏽 comment on this post ⤵️

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30/05/2026

Shell 🐚 art continues!
Checkout this stunning creation by Darrell Sibosado on Bard Country titled Niman Aarl
🤍 Individual fish carved from trochus shell, mother of pearl, turtle shell, dugong bone & ebony wood 🖤
Even more beautiful IRL so check it out at Art Above The 26th - exhibition on now!
Opened with a huge crowd last night at Civic Centre 🌴
Congratulations 🙌🏾

Photos taken with artist's permission 🙏🏽

30/05/2026

Here's April's episode of Talking Shells with Sandy Dann 🎙

We are an Indigenous media organisation located in the far north-west of Australia.

28/05/2026

27/05/2026

Garden snails 🐌 have beautiful shells too 😍
Did you spy this tiny land gastropod in the pottery shoot?
Gastropods can live in & on
🌊 salt water ie. The oceans 🌊
💧 fresh water eg. Rivers & lakes 💧
🌱 land eg. In gardens & forests 🌱
Next time you see any snail, slow down for a closer look 🐌👀

27/05/2026

I've not seen a smile like this before!
Eye spots from the kiln stand 👀
Pretty
Make shells, don't take shells 🪸
Big thanks to Bill at
Stunning pieces 🩵🤎🩷

27/05/2026

This is living its best life in the studio 🖌
& models for mugs, bowls, pendants, planters, shells & stunning stylised forms 😍
They are not sitting on a shelf collecting dust 🙅🏽‍♀️
Lucky little pretties 🤍🐚🤍
Make shells, don't take shells 🙏🏽
Good onya Bill 🙌🏾 thanks for showing us around 👍🏼

27/05/2026

My cup felt fully full-full after meeting Bill & talking shells in his 🐚
If you can get there this week for the exhibition, part of sales are being donated to the re-shelling project run by in Oyster Harbor, Albany 🦪