Fish & Water - Sounds Wild
Shells as Money

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Shells as money

A lone beachcomber stoops to pick up a shell on a rainy Southeast Alaska morning. Alaska waters are home to a variety of shelled animals. Some, like gastropods, have a single shell; others, like scallops, are bivalves and have two shells that are hinged. Whelks are predatory gastropods that prey on other snails. The leafy thornmouth is an Alaska gastropod with a showy, fringed shell. The fringes are functional, aerodynamic in a sense, they allow the snail to land right-side-up when it's knocked off its rocky underwater perch. A calcareous thorn on the underside discourages predators from breaking into it.

Tusk shells are small, cylindical snails that live in sand. True to their name, these smooth, white shells do look like small tusks. They're also known by their scientific name, Dentalium. Dentalium shells were used as money by many Native Americans in the Pacific Northwest and Canada, from the Pacific Coast to the Dakotas. Dentalium shells were harvested by the Nootka tribe in two areas off the coast of Vancouver Island in British Columbia. They were used as ornaments and traded, and as they were traded further from their source they began to acquire a precise monetary value. The standard measure was the fathom long string, which held about 40 shells. In the 1860s in the Dakota Territory, just two or three dentalium shells would buy a buffalo robe.