Photo by Harlan E. Wittkopf on
Hardy's Internet Guide to Marine Gastropods (used by permission)

These shells have inhabited our waters for 60 million years and have been significant to cultures in our history. Indians used whelks as food, housewares and weapons; remains have been discovered in burial grounds. The natural shape of the shell lends itself to practical uses (for instance, large whelks of all kinds have been used worldwide as lamps).

Even Whelk egg cases were utilized. Long ago, sailors used sandy clumps of egg strands to scrub themselves. Left-handed shells are considered sacred in parts of Asia and India, where a left-hand Whelk is very rare, so sailors visiting the Western hemisphere collected the common left-handed Lightning Whelk to sell for a profit in the East. This commerce continues today.