Pacific seashell washes up on Outer Banks shores, stumping park service
A lot of crazy things have washed up on the shores of the Outer Banks.
But it’s rare to have something show up that baffles the locals.
What’s this strange object? A 3½-inch-long yellowish seashell.
Of course, it’s not just any seashell.
Turns out, it’s one that the National Park Service said in a Facebook post that isn’t usually found on this side of the continental United States.
“Shelling Saturday — Need a bit of help identifying this shell,” read the post on the Cape Lookout National Seashore Facebook page. “I **think** its a Cone Snail shell, but cannot find anything resembling it in the shell id books for this area. Most cone snails apparently live in the Indo-Pacific region and not along the North Carolina coast. Any ideas?”
The National Park Service said the shell was found on the point of Cape Lookout.
“It was buried in the sand except for its tip which caused our curious sheller to dig it up,” the post read.
More than a few people mentioned on the Facebook post that they believe it is a “Florida cone” and not one from where the Indian Ocean and western Pacific Ocean merge.
Storms are known to bring material from a variety of places to the Outer Banks, but to stump the National Park Service is rare.
Chris Pastrick is a TribLive digital producer. An Allegheny County native, he began working for the Valley News Dispatch in 1993 and joined the Trib in 1997. He can be reached at cpastrick@triblive.com.
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