An hourly guide that follows twenty-four mollusks to reveal the fascinating lives behind their shells. From morning to night and from the Arctic to the equator, snails, clams, and other shell-making mollusks have busy days. In this short book, award-winning author and marine biologist Helen Scales shows readers exactly how these animals spend their time. Each chapter of Shell Day features a single mollusk during a single hour, highlighting twenty-four unique species. We begin our day far in the north, where the Svalbard archipelago lies deep in the darkness of the polar night. And yet, in what remains a scientific mystery, Iceland scallops continue daily rhythms, closing and opening their fan-shaped shells using an internal clock. At noon, we observe a clam shell sitting still on the seabed of a sandy tropical lagoon. The two shells open a crack, and a pair of rounded eyes peep out. A small, rust-colored coconut octopus hiding inside lets the clam shells fall apart and gathers them u
