A Visit to the Bailey-Matthews National Shell Museum in Sanibel

Thank you to the Bailey-Matthews National Shell Museum for providing complimentary tickets for my family.  All opinions are my own.

Our visit to the Bailey-Matthews National Shell Museum on Sanibel Island was the perfect end to our family’s long weekend in Florida.  Sanibel Island is regularly designated as the best shelling beach in the world, and honestly, shelling was a main draw for us when deciding where to spend the weekend on Florida’s Gulf Coast.  Hunting for shells on the beach in Treasure Island and Clearwater was a highlight of our trip last winter.  At the Bailey-Matthews National Shell Museum in Sanibel, we learned about different species of mollusks and the wide variety of shells that they make.  This educational opportunity provided the context we needed to better understand the shells we found in Sanibel.

Sanibel Shelling

We woke up at sunrise on both of our mornings in Sanibel and headed straight to the beach.  This gave us the chance to watch the sunrise over the ocean during prime shelling time as the beach was covered with shells that had washed up into the sand overnight.  My husband found more unusual shells a few feet into the water.  Serious shellers had nets, but because we weren’t that savvy, he used his hands and found some very interesting shells.

Our visit to Sanibel Island coincided with the Annual Shell Festival.  Our family visited the Festival and scoped out all the shell varieties that were available for sale along with shell art. We also had a preview of the National Shell Museum by visiting their mobile tank unit, which was staffed by middle school experts practicing their presentation skills.

History of the Bailey-Matthews National Shell Museum

The National Shell Museum was incorporated in 1986 and was originally housed in a shack.  Early supporters and donors included Raymond Burr of Perry Mason fame.  Burr helped with the Museum’s first capital campaign and donated his collection of cowries from Fiji to the National Shell Museum.  Burr died before the Museum’s current building opened in 1995 on land donated by the Bailey and Matthews families, and the circular garden in front of the Museum was dedicated in his honor.

Raymond Burr’s collection of Fijian cowries

The “National” designation was added to the Museum’s title in 2014 because it is the only professional museum in the U.S. devoted to shells.  The Museum began a $6 million renovation project in January 2019.  The project includes a new aquarium that is expected to open in 2020.

Visiting the Bailey-Matthews National Shell Museum

The Bailey-Matthews National Shell Museum on Sanibel Island is open daily from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.  The National Shell Museum’s operations are fully funded by admissions fees and charitable contributions.  Admission costs $15 for adults, $9 for children ages 5-13 and seniors.  There is no admissions fee for children under 5.

Bailey-Matthews National Shell Museum

Bailey-Matthews National Shell Museum – Scavenger Hunt

We visited the National Shell Museum on our last afternoon in Sanibel.  Our kids each received a scavenger hunt when we arrived, and we started our tour in the main exhibition space. The kids found many of the shells featured on the scavenger hunt in the Children’s Learning Lab. Our eight and eleven year old sons completed the hunt independently. Our four year old needed some assistance but quickly matched the shell pictures on the scavenger hunt to those in the display cases. The Museum brilliantly utilized tear strips on the scavenger hunt worksheets so kids didn’t need to carry around writing instruments. It was a great activity to help kids investigate the main exhibition space, and they received a shell and a wrist band or coloring book when they turned in their completed worksheet at the main desk.

Completing the National Shell Museum’s scavenger hunt

Bailey-Matthews National Shell Museum – Record Breaking Sized Shells

The exhibit of world-record shells was another hit. My kids are fascinated with world records. Each year, we purchase the updated copy of Guinness Book of World Records, and my boys spend hours reading the pages.  My boys checked out the entries on mollusks in the recent editions but did not find any of the Museum’s shells featured. The Museum’s world record shells include the goliath conch, the lightning whelk, the Atlantic trumpet triton, and the horse conch.​  The horse conch is two feet long!

The world’s largest horse conch

Bailey-Matthews National Shell Museum – Mollusks in Action

The Museum rotates two, 30-minute educational films on shells every half hour.  We watched Mollusks in Action, which was filmed locally.  Our four year old was so exhausted from her morning at the beach and pool and found the dark room to be a perfect place to nap, and so my husband stayed with her for the second presentation while I headed to the art room with two enthusiastic boys ready to create some shell animal art.

Bailey-Matthews National Shell Museum – Shell Animal Art

Shell animals were available for purchase at the Shell Festival, but the kids were itching to make their own. The National Shell Museum made an otherwise messy and complicated art project super fun and easy, so I was all for it. The art room includes thousands of shells separated by type into clear plastic bins, hot glue guns, covered tables and a wrapping station. Each guest is permitted to make one animal with 12 or fewer shells. There are a number of examples to copy, but my eight year old chose to create a dolphin on his own and then became super creative and placed the dolphin on top of a decorative shell “stand.”  My eleven year old made a starfish and then placed it inside a large shell.  They each asked for my advice in their shell selection but were able to work the hot glue guns and create their animals with minimal assistance.

At the end of our visit, our well rested daughter woke up and wanted her turn to make shell art. She chose to make a butterfly. I had to take the lead on most of the gluing, but she selected and placed the shells. After each creation was complete, we wrapped them in newspaper and carried them home in small brown paper bags.

Bailey-Matthews National Shell Museum – Tank Talk

The Tank Talk is definitely not to be missed during any visit to the National Shell Museum. Tank Talks are offered four times each day at 11:00 a.m., 12:30 p.m., 2:30 p.m. and 4:00 p.m. The standing room only crowd for the 2:30 p.m. presentation listened intently to Bubby, a Florida master naturalist and general shell expert. Bubby was extremely knowledgeable and enthusiastic and held the attention of the whole audience for the duration of her 30-minute presentation.  The Museum reports that 90% of the visitors to the National Shell Museum are not aware that shells come from living animals, but no one can leave Bubby’s presentation without a clear understanding that shells are the exoskeletons of mollusks such as snails, clams, oysters and many others.

The presentation included some scientific shelling terms, but Bubby defined each in kid-friendly jargon.  We learned that gastropod means “stomach foot” because these mollusks with whirl around shells use what looks like a stomach to move.  The horse conch, which is the Florida state shell, is the largest gastropod in the Atlantic Ocean and therefore the top mollusk predator.  We also learned that most mollusks use calcium and carbon from the ocean to form calcium carbonate shells.

I particularly enjoyed Bubby’s discussion of lightning whelks.  Female lightening whelks are larger than the males because they hold the eggs.  Each of their egg castings hold 300-1,000 eggs.  We got to see tiny eggs under a magnifying glass.  The eggs were tiny versions of the full-sized shells.

Lightning whelk eggs under a magnifying glass

We also learned that the most coveted shell in Sanibel is the junonia.  Junonia shells are so rare because junonia live in the Western Atlantic at depths of 100 feet to 400 feet.  Because of the junonia’s deep water habitat, few shells wash up on Sanibel’s shores, and shellers who find a junonia shell are often featured in the local paper.  The shells have spots that remind me of a giraffe, and I thought the shell was particularly beautiful before I knew it was so rare.  In over 40 years of shelling, Bubby has never found one on her own, but a casual sheller next to her on the beach picked up two a few years ago.  Before leaving the Museum, we checked out the junonia exhibit in the main exhibition space with a new understanding of the precious shell.

Bubby told us that different winds, tides and currents effect what shells come up on the beach on any given day.  The best shelling is often right after a big storm.  We also learned that the collection of live shells is strictly prohibited in Sanibel, and any living shells found marooned on the beach should be carefully placed into the Ocean.  Too often, tourists find a living mollusk and throw it back into the Atlantic, which could seriously injure the animal.

Our Review of the Bailey-Matthews National Shell Museum

We spent about 2.5 hours at the Bailey-Matthews National Shell Museum.  Our kids were engaged throughout the visit and gained a deeper understanding of shells.  We definitely recommend a trip to the National Shell Museum to any family visiting Sanibel Island.  This unique educational opportunity truly deepened our knowledge of mollusks, and we will never look at a beach the same.  We only wish we went to the Museum at the beginning of our time in Sanibel.