Eastern Point Beach, Groton, CT

Around 15 minutes from Mystic, Connecticut there is a little beach at Eastern Point, in Groton on the mouth of the Thames river. There is a park for children and scenic views all around. The beach itself is rather tiny but from one end to the other are tons of slipper shells - so many you have to be careful where you step! It is a sweet little beach nestled in between a couple of jetties. What was marvelous for this beach comber were three very interesting finds.
First of all I found a couple of shells about the size of chestnut astarte clams but something was different about these shells. When I was able to check them over carefully and compare them to the chestnut astarte I have at home; I was thrilled to discover they are Northern Cardita shells! I photographed the two so you can see the obvious differences. One has concentric ridges (the astarte clam) and the Northern Cardita has radial ribs.

Another amazing find was the operculum of a whelk! When my husband found it I was not convinced it was anything of value. When I was able to confirm what he had suspected, I was thrilled to discover that it is indeed an operculum of either the channeled whelk or the knobbed whelk! A treasure indeed! (An operculum is like a little door that the mollusk uses to close off the opening of their shell.) Here is a link to more information and photos of a knobbed whelk with operculum.
​http://barnegatshellfish.org/images/whelk/operculum_whelk_bb_01_l.PNG

You can see the operculum above; it is the dark oval shaped piece. We also discovered transverse ark shells!
Third, I usually find Blood Arks on Cape Cod in Massachusetts but this time we discovered the transverse ark which looks very similar except the little "teeth" of the shell stretches out from both sides of the hinge where as the Blood Ark has more "teeth" to one side than the other. The ponderous ark also looks very similar! This little beach yielded some very interesting treasures! Here is a short video - Enjoy!