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Originally Posted by Caitlin Williams Hi Charles
I am taking the liberty of posting that picture for the record. What kind of mollusk is a whelk shell? It is a melo melo pearl? |
The whelk is very closely related to the conch. The phylum and class are the same, and they are both marine gastropods. The whelk is even often mistakenly referred to as a conch. But they come from the order Neogastropoda while the conch comes from Meogastropoda.
I am not familiar with pearls specifically from the whelk, but one would assume they would trade in the same circles with conch as they are also calcareous concretions with flame, and basically indistinguishable from other conch pearls.
We sold a salmon-color conch last month:
http://www.pearlparadise.com/detail.aspx?ID=1260