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| Fighting conch we found at Lovers Key |
The fighting conch belongs to the stombidae family. The conch is a marine gastropod mollusc. The world mollusc in latin translates to soft, meaning the invertebrates have soft bodies however some have evolved to have a hard shell either internally or externally, these shells are used for protection. The conch has a external shell which is made of of calcium carbonate.
The conch can be found in warm waters ranging from the Caribbean sea up to North Carolina in the Atlantic. The conch can be found hidden on the sea floor tangled up in the sea grasses.
The Florida fighting conch can grow up to 10cm in length. The hard shell which protects the soft body has varying colours; white, yellow, brown, green and orange. On the foot there is a sharp spike which the conch uses for protection against predators. The conch is able to look at it environment by not exposing its entire body but using their eye stalks which poke upwards. The males are very territorial with other males and they would fight for their territory, apart from this aggression the fighting conch is rather peaceful.
The conch feeds on detritus and algae (omnivore). The conch will keep the sand clean by filtering out the dead organic matter, this filtering keeps the sand aerated. The conch feeds by lengthening the snout and collects the prey via the tongue (radula), it has a tough and rough surface for scraping of the food from the rocks.
Aquaticcommunity.com, (2015). Fighting Conch - Strombus alatus. [online] Available at: http://www.aquaticcommunity.com/SwSnails/FightingConch.php [Accessed 5 Apr. 2015].
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