Conch herds face death by old age as young molluscs disappear

The conch population has crashed in Florida but ghosts remain there, as seen in this conch blowing contest. - Filepic

The queen of the sea, a monster mollusk that inspired its own republic in the American state of Florida, is in trouble. It’s now as likely to be found in a frying pan or a gift shop as on the ocean floor. A marine preserve in the Bahamas, famed for its abundance of queen conches, is missing something too: young conches.

Researchers studying the no-take park (where no collection of marine animals is allowed) off Exuma in the Bahamas, one of hundreds throughout the Caribbean, found that over the last two decades, the number of young has sharply declined as adult conches steadily matured and died off.