Wavy turban conches, wavy top whelk, wavy top snails, wavy top, wavy top turban, turban conches, Astraea Undosa, or Lithopoma Undosum in the revised nomenclature: This animal has as many different names as there are for Vishnu, the Nepalese God holding a conch shell* (Links marked with an asterisk will open a new window, to return to this page, simply close the new window). Wavy turban conches are in the Class Gastropoda; Order Archaeogastropoda; Superfamily Trochacea; Family Astraeinae. These sea snails are herbivore scavengers that are currently being harvested for their meat. They have long been admired for the beautiful mother of pearl shimmer as the outer layer of the shell wore away. Wavy turban conches may have been known to the Shoshonean Luiseņo * of the California Coast for more than 5000 years. These conches were first classified as Astraea Undosa by Wood in 1828.

Studies today range from marketing strategies of using papain, papaya enzyme, as a tenderizer to create a more "abalone" type texture for "whelk meat"; to conches per quadrat (an undersea land measurement), size measurements of conches; and marking of live conches for tracking studies by today's marine biologists in an attempt to ascertain the viability of the population. Wavy Turban conch populations have been studied at various sites since the 1980s.

On a wild adventure in Baja California over 10 years ago I encountered wavy turban conch shells piled by the thousands. After a major storm that I discovered some coves that were filled with the conches. By going through thousands of shells, I collected about 20 that were intact and greater than 3 inches in size. I have 2 conches over 5 inches and perhaps another 6 shells over 4 inches. Some shell texts indicated that 3 inches was about as big as wavy turban conches get, however in reviews of work studying their populations, I heard of one conch measuring almost 6 inches, and another one over 5 inches. These huge wavy turban conches do seem to be very rare though.

There is one unusual feature about the conches I have collected. While I am relatively certain they are wavy turbans, they differ slightly from most of the pictures I have seen in that they have two larger ridges of "waves" at the bottom of each Whorl instead of one. I believe I read (in a conch book I can no longer find!) that a small number of the wavy turban conches have this characteristic. I have often wondered if the piles of shells were caused by fishing and harvesting the whelk meat then tossing the shell overboard, or deaths were caused by a toxic spill, or perhaps if this was just large numbers of natural deaths because the population was so great. Perhaps someone reading this will be able to enlighten me about the wavy turban conch resting grounds.

These Wavy Turban Conches were "volunteers"....from that Baja Adventure. Note the double row of large ridges.

In the next photo you can see the largest wavy turban conch has been cut as a musical instrument. This shell is capable of quite a loud song, despite it appearing smaller than most shells we perceive as musical conches.

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