OHHHHH THIS IS BECAUSE I TALKED TO YOU ABOUT ABALONE SHELLS. OMG I think its super cool seeing the variance between types of shells. like, you know that turtle shells are part of the body and therefore they can't exactly just get a new shell when they have one, right? and sometimes this can lead to defects like bubbles of air in the shell that leads to turtles being unable to dive further underwater ... for clams/oysters/abalone i think their shells are like attached intensely to them through muscular fibers, you remember how eating them was really hard because of all the fibers and it was extremely difficult ripping them off? it's really difficult to take them off, but apparently ripping them off doesn't necessarily mean it will die but it cannot form another shell after that... or at least, that seems to be the case specifically for abalone shells?

specifically for abalone shells, the amount of holes in it's shells vary so much from species to species and grow in number for as long as it lives. if you look at a lot of smaller abalone shells you'll see like a lot less of them (obviously) but do you remember the large one in my house? it's got like, 4 holes and 2 more that are like ridges, forming holes, compared to the tiny one that's got like 3 and barely any more forming. apparently there's a type of abalone common in california that can grow up to 10 inches long, but it's the one that got nearly hunted to extinction, it's called the white abalone.. i'm looking at pictures, and i don't quite know the ones i have. but the one that looks closest is the pinto abalone, the Haliotis kamtschatkana - it fits what dad said, too, about how it RARELY grows to be that size. that's crazy. they span from alaska all the way to california, along the west coast...

sea creatures are super cool. a lot of molluscs tend to have valves and the like for breathing but abalones are unique for the holes in their shell... reading through apparently sperm/eggs can come out of there too... what a fact..

last thing did you know abalone shells are also called ear shells due to the formation of their inner shells? the way the whorl in the shell curls inwards gives it that name, lol. the underside of an abalone is also called a foot, for the way it walks along the sea floor... it's so cute. it eats algae and i love it so dearly.