ShellSanibel
Read the beach.
Common jingle shell
Anomia simplex
common · 1–2 in (2.5–5 cm)
How to tell it
Thin, translucent, slightly warped discs in pale gold, silver-grey or apricot. Light enough to be nearly weightless and they chime softly against each other.
What it gets confused with
Nothing else is this thin and this translucent. The lower valve has a hole in it where the animal attached and is often mistaken for a different species.
Where it turns up
High on the beach with the light material — wind moves them more than water does.
Alive or empty
It lives cemented to a hard surface by a plug through its lower valve, so anything lying loose on the beach has already come away and is empty. The thin, translucent upper valves people collect were never going to have an animal in them.
Worth knowing
The material a great many shell wind-chimes are made from, hence the name.
Taking live shells is prohibited in Lee County
That includes anything with the animal still in it, and sand dollars, sea stars and urchins whether or not they look alive. If it moves, if it closes, if it is anchored to the sand — put it back where you found it, the right way up.
A shell with an animal in it is not a souvenir that has been left out. It is the animal’s house, and the beach is not producing spares.