Polinices lewisii (moon snail)

Found in area 5.

You can find moon snails near the water during a minus tide. You can see the shells above the surface. On live ones, the foot will usually be under sand. If you pick up a live one its body may hang out. It is huge. You wouldn’t believe they could get all that body back in the shell, but they do it by leaking out water they absorbed.

Moon snails like to eat clams and will try to pull the shells apart, and if they’re unsuccessful they use their radula to drill holes into the shells of their victims. You can see drilled shells that have washed up on shore. In Spring and Summer moon snail nests are all over the place on the north part of the beach near the extreme low tide mark. The nests are gray and round with a sort of turtle neck collar. Moon snails make them with slime and sand. The nests look like very small car wheels. A 6 inch moon snail is not unusual at maturity.

A word of caution: Moon snail shells that are of a fairly large size seem to be desirable as a tool for carrying home shells found at the beach. Be careful. They are also desirable hiding places for the red octopus at the beach. Several people have been surprised at being touched gently on the hand as they walked along the water’s edge looking for living things. To find a red octopus doing the touching is a real surprise.