SANIBEL ISLAND, Fla. (WINK) \u2014 A free diver discovered a shell off the coast of Sanibel Island that turned out to be far rarer than she initially thought.<\/p>\n
Jemma Fortune was free diving when she spotted the tip of a shell sticking up from the ocean floor. She initially believed she had found a Junonia, a highly sought-after shell that collectors often spend their entire lives searching for.<\/p>\n
“I originally thought it was a Junonia, but I posted it in some shell groups, and everyone was quick to let me know it was something else, which I think is a little cooler,” Fortune said.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
After consulting with experts at the National Shell Museum, Fortune learned she had discovered a fossil in the Scaphella family, most likely a Scaphella floridana.<\/p>\n
Fortune continued independent research and found the fossil could be the ancient relative of the Junonia.<\/p>\n
The fossil shell is just under six inches, potentially exceeding the typical maximum size of five inches documented for the species, Fortune said.<\/p>\n
The shell’s condition and preserved coloring make the find particularly remarkable for its age. Fortune was able to identify the fossil as a floridana rather than a Junonia by examining the protoconch, which lacks the ridges characteristic of the modern Junonia.<\/p>\n
“A lot of people kind of spend their whole lives looking for a Junonia, so it’s cool to find something even older than that,” Fortune said.<\/p>\n
Fortune shared her discovery on social media, where other shell collectors revealed they had found similar specimens without realizing what they were. She continues to document her shell-finding adventures on TikTok under the username JemmaFMiller.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SANIBEL ISLAND, Fla. (WINK) \u2014 A free diver discovered a shell off the coast of Sanibel Island that…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":421596,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[209,211,210,28,166391,166389,166390,15471,24186,6097],"class_list":["post-421595","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cape-coral","tag-cape-coral","tag-cape-coral-headlines","tag-cape-coral-news","tag-florida","tag-free-diver","tag-jemma-fortune","tag-national-shell-museum","tag-sanibel","tag-sanibel-island","tag-social-media"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/421595","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=421595"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/421595\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/421596"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=421595"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=421595"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=421595"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}