ShellSanibel
Read the beach.
Kitten’s paw
Plicatula gibbosa
common · 0.5–1.2 in (1.5–3 cm)
How to tell it
Small, thick, triangular, with a handful of heavy raised folds spreading from the hinge like toes. Usually white with reddish-brown lines along the folds.
What it gets confused with
Small worn scallops, but the kitten’s paw is far thicker and has fewer, blunter ribs.
Where it turns up
Common in the coarser wrack, often still cemented to a fragment of something else.
Alive or empty
Cements itself to hard surfaces, so beach finds are almost always dead and detached.
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.