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Excerpts from Jim Conrad's
Naturalist Newsletter
from the September 4, 2011 Newsletter issued from Mayan Beach Garden Inn 20 kms north of Mahahual; Caribbean coastal beach and mangroves, ~N18.89°, ~W87.64°, Quintana Roo state, MÉXICO
STARSNAIL
Having such poor vision, I concentrate so hard on not tripping over things that often I overlook what's right beside the path. That's when it's good to have along a kid like the one the other day on a Nature walk. What a wonder that he noticed so many things and wanted to know about them. He found the little shell shown above.
That's basically a snail shell with sharp dentations along the coil crests, so we know right off that we have gastropod (snails and slugs), which is a kind of mollusk; it's not something like a clam or barnacle shell.
However, the experts' say that maybe around 85,000 kinds of gastropods exist, so calling something a gastropod isn't saying much. Volunteer identifier Bea in Ontario steered me to the Turban Snail Family, the Turbinidae, but at that point it becomes harder to get a solid name for it.
A good guess is that we have the Longspine Starsnail, Astralium phoebium... *UPDATE: Later with much more information on the Internet, this looks more like a LITHOPOMUM, probably americanum. I'm still working on it.