Bailey-Matthews National Shell Museum
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The Bailey-Matthews National Shell Museum is a museum devoted to every aspect of seashells, conchology, and malacology, including the paleontological and archeological/anthropological aspects of the study of shells. The museum is located in the city of Sanibel, Florida on the Gulf of Mexico coast of Southwest Florida.
2014 view of the museum with shell banners
A 2011 view of the museum, the Raymond Burr Memorial Garden in the foreground
An exhibit showing how the Calusa Native American people used the shells of the locally-occurring large whelks to create tools.
Part of one exhibit shows a growth series of the very attractive shell Scaphella junonia, a relatively rare find on the island of Sanibel.
Conchology
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Conchology is the study of mollusc shells. Conchology is one aspect of malacology, the study of molluscs; however, malacology is the study of molluscs as whole organisms, whereas conchology is confined to the study of their shells. It includes the study of land and freshwater mollusc shells as well as seashells and extends to the study of a gastropod's operculum.
Calliostoma tigris
Shell of Lobatus gigas, the queen conch
A vendor in Tanzania with a variety of large seashells for sale
Sea shells from Recreatione dell'occhio e della mente by Filippo Bonanni