Triple Fuss Gigantus

Every summer I seem to find an unusual creature at Pawley’s Island. One year it was a giant, purple, acorn barnacle. Scientific name Megabalanus tintinnabulum. This year it was a horse conch. Scientific name Triplofusus giganteus. Or “Triple Fuss Gigantus,” as I like to call it.

This Triple Fuss was on the jetty near our house at the south end of the island. I spotted it at low tide and was surprised no one else had seen it. Look at how orange it is! We were boogie boarding when it caught my eye. I ran back to the house for my camera and then had my son and his friend sit near it for scale for a picture. Then other people came over to see it. It caused a minor sensation. Quite a fuss. We should have charged admission!

What these pictures don’t capture is the way in which it clung to the barnacle encrusted rock. The way it squirmed and contracted, it must have been eating. I should have taken a movie of it. At one point it even rose up off of the rock, as if stretching on tiptoe to see what all the commotion was about.

And though this is called a Horse Conch it is actually not a proper conch. More info here on this gastropod.

The big joke in our group was whether you could eat it or not. Our cousin said in his best good-ole-boy voice, “Let’s get some batter and fry it up!”

All we do is think with our stomachs at the beach.