Found in 2000 in Ship Bottom, NJ
Photography and text by Sara Caruso
Seashells are one of the enchantments of New Jersey’s beaches. Every year thousands of visitors take home the fragile beauties that wash ashore at their feet. From elegant whelks to calico-colored scallops, New Jersey waters offer a variety of species for shell collectors to adore and admire. But there is a small shell that many collectors may have overlooked all these years.
The wentletrap (Epitonium) is a small shell with a unique design that has captured the imaginations of shell collectors for decades. The name wentletrap originated from the Dutch wenteltrap, meaning spiral staircase. The fitting name has led some to call them staircase or ladder shells. New Jersey’s wentletraps are usually white in color but tend to turn shades of light to dark gray after death. Shells that are exceptionally dark and worn, may be fossilized. Researchers believe many gastropod shells found on New Jersey’s coastline are fossils from the Pleistocene that have eroded out of undersea fossil beds.
Wentletraps spend their time on the sandy seafloor near coelenterates such as anemones and corals – their main source of food. Although there are no anemones or corals known to live directly offshore, researchers believe they may be attracted to the artificial reefs and rock jetties that have been introduced along New Jersey’s coastline.
The shells feature a unique architecture of spiral whorls that coil around the main structure. These whorls, known as costae, are believed to act as protection against other predatory snails which bore into the shell of their prey to feed. The shape of the shell and costae may also help to explain why some species eventually found their way into brackish waters.
In the late 1990s through 2001, Judy-Lynn Goldberg and Robert Robertson conducted studies to analyze the amount of each species found in New Jersey waters. The shells were collected in and near Ocean City, Cape May County in southeastern New Jersey. A total of six wentletrap species have been found along our coast, with species being found as far north as Massachusetts and as far south as Florida and Texas. Goldberg and Robertson scoured the shoreline daily; beginning at the outgoing high tide until low tide, collecting both living and dead samples. The sampling began in July of 1996, collecting was done intermittently but year-round, including winters. This continued after March 18, 2001. The six species found in decreasing abundance are as follows:
Number of Specimens:
E. humphreysii (Kiener, 1838)……………………1,625 (16 % live)
E. rupicola (Kurtz, 1860) [not = rupicolum]……………………119
E. multistiaum (Say, 1826)…………………………………………….73
E. candeanum (d’Orbigny, 1842 ?)…………………………………16
E. angulatum (Say, 1830)………………………………………………3
E. tollini (Bartsch, 1938)………………………………………………..1
E. humphreysii, the most common wentletrap collected along our shores, was found more frequently at the strand line where the waves had receded. E. rupicola was found where the waves broke. It is theorized this could be due to the thicker costae of the E. humphreysii. Unlike most of the other wentletraps, E. rupicolawas found to be more tolerant of brackish water. During the study it was observed that storms actually decreased the number of wentletrap shells found.
The studies were published in American Conchologist, and a follow-up entry was written in 2005. The continuing study found a drastic decrease in shells found from after April 2001 to 2004. By April 2004, of E. humphreysii, the most prominent of the shells, only fifty specimens were collected, with none found in February, March, July, or October of that year. This may have been due to the unusually cold and stormy winters of 2003 and 2004. Of the specimens collected, however, no living animals of any of the six species were found after June 2001. Currently their habitats, food supply and life cycles off the Cape May coast are unknown.
New Jersey’s wentletraps are a rare species with an unclear fate. As ocean temperatures rise the numbers of these animals may be affected, but no further studies have been made at this time. Aside from this, there could be a chance to find wentletraps on New Jersey’s beaches. With every tide, that potential grows. So, the next time you are at the New Jersey shore, search where the tide last washed, and sift carefully through the shells. With some luck, you may find this tiny vanishing beauty.
