Florida Fighting Conch

Traveling to our third site (well actually our forth site) with Dr.Douglass  we came across an interesting species of conch. We came across the Florida Fighting Conch, I actually found this particular species among the shell hash that accumulated on Mound key and thought that its common  name was very out of place. The reason being is that when I think of any kind of conch I just think of them as slow moving shy creatures but this species actually attempts to aggressively interact with you.
Once in the water and looking at the different biotic organism that inhabit the sea grass bed I noticed  what appeared to be a rock formation and held it in my hand , only to be greeted by a pair of eyes looking back at me and then what I thought was the conch coming out of its shell and a chance to see what it looks like was actually a quick jab of a serrated foot trying to warred me off its shell. At this time I proceeded to drop the conch back to where I had originally picked it up from.The quick movement and the attempt to harm my hand  caught me off guard. It was then that I know why the Florida Fighting Conch had its name.