It is illegal to take conch shells with living organisms from Florida beaches. (Photo: breckeni, Getty Images/iStockphoto) 
 
 A Texas tourist who collected 40 queen conchs seashells from Key West, Florida, is going to jail for 15 days. 
 
 A Florida judge also sentenced Diana Fiscal-Gonzalez of Dallas to serve six months of probation and pay a $500 fine, plus $268 for court costs, for taking 40 queen conchs from the waters that surround Key West, the Miami Herald reports. 
 
 Fiscal-Gonzalez, who pleaded guilty, said she didn't know taking the shells from the beach was illegal. She was planning to give the state-protected mollusks away as gifts. 
 
 Recreational collection of empty seashells is allowed in Florida, but the conch shells Fiscal-Gonzalez collected contained organisms inside. Taking a living queen conch is illegal. Also, killing, mutilating or removing a living queen conch from a shell is prohibited, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission notes. 
 
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 Fiscal-Gonzalez was arrested by an officer from the commission on July 13, 2017, after an anonymous tipster called the agency. Officer John Martino reported seeing three containers full of queen conches soaking in bleach and water when he met with Fiscal-Gonzalez. 
 
 Conch shells are an important part of Florida Keys culture. Native-born islanders are called Conchs, and the Keys are nicknamed the Conch Republic. Empty conch shells, which produce a unique sound when blown, have also been used as signaling devices in the Florida Keys for centuries. 
 
 Follow Ashley May on Twitter: @AshleyMayTweets 
 
 Read or Share this story: https://usat.ly/2uwcuFE ||||| Former Bucs defensive tackle Warren Sapp, a regular on charter fishing trips in his retirement these days, was bitten in the arm by a shark while lobstering on a charter based out of Marathon in the Florida Keys. 
 
 "It's simple," charter captain Jack Carlson wrote via text message while still cleaning up Wednesday afternoon. "He was lobstering with me and a shark bit Sapp while he was grabbing the lobster. He's OK." 
 
 Carlson's charter, Two Conchs, posted a photo to Instagram with a photo of a deep, bloody gash to Sapp's arm. "Warren Sapp attacked by a shark while lobstering," he wrote, adding the hashtag #epicbattle. "The shark wanted the lobster just as bad as Sapp," he later wrote on Instagram. "Sapp got the lobster and the Shark got his lick in too." 
 
 Carlson said by phone he was fishing on Florida Bay on Wednesday, about seven miles out from Marathon in 9 feet of water. Sapp was reached for a lobster that a shark -- one witness thought it was a small nurse shark, perhaps four feet long -- also wanted. 
 
 "The sharks hang around those lobster holes, because they feed on the lobster as well," Carlson said. 
 
 Carlson said Sapp "may need stitches" for the injury -- to the inside of his left forearm, near the elbow -- but that he kept fishing. "We bandaged it up, put some gauze on there, some black electrical tape and hit a couple more spots, then headed in," Carlson said. 
 
 Sapp, now a member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame and the Bucs' Ring of Honor, posted a photo on Instagram earlier Wednesday showing him going out lobstering with Two Conchs and Carlson. He spoke briefly with the Times by phone Wednesday before abruptly hanging up. ||||| With its distinctive reddish and white stripes, its gracefully flowing fins, and its menacing spine, not many fish can embody the beauty, mystery, and danger of the ocean quite like the lionfish. Although it's native to the Indo-Pacific region, lionfish were introduced to the Atlantic and are now found along the U.S. coast, from North Carolina to Florida, and in the Bahamas and Caribbean. The lionfish spells trouble for the balance of ecosystems and fisheries it invades, as it can out-compete native species for food and space. It lacks predators, has a voracious appetite, reproduces quicly, and is spreading fast. 
 
 Off the California coast, a group of elephant seals sleeps in the sun on a sand dune on Active Point, San Miguel Island, part of the Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuary. 
 
 Here we see a close-up of brain coral in the Dry Tortugas, Florida. 
 
 Make way for the balloonfish, also known as a porcupine or spiny puffer fish. As its name suggests, it will swell up like a balloon when attacked. VIDEO: Flushed Fish Invading Oceans 
 
 This manta ray coasts over a reef, in the process inviting much smaller fish to clean parasites and other debris off of it. Manta Rays are the largest type of ray in the ocean. The World's Biggest Manta Ray Sanctuary Created 
 
 DNA testing confirmed that the eggs pictured here were those of a loggerhead turtle, a marine reptile species listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act. The testing was done by NOAA's Center for Coastal Environmental Health and Biomolecular Research, in Charleston, S.C., the only lab in the country dedicated to forensic analysis of marine species. PHOTOS: Sea Turtles From Shell to Surf 
 
 A Caribbean spiny lobster strolls on the sea floor. This photo was shot during a 2010 NOAA expedition in the U.S. Virgin Islands to map underwater habitats and the marine life they support. Deep-Sea Methane Ecosystem Found in Atlantic 
 
 This school of permits contains 60-80 individuals, each more than a foot long. The school was observed in the Dry Tortugas, Florida. PHOTOS: Shipwreck Hunt Turns Up 'Tar Lilies' 
 
 Kelp and sardines, just doing what they do, off Anacapa Island, Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuary. Whales Get Fishing Tips From Peers 
 
 The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is celebrating "30 Days of the Ocean" in the month of June, and in honor of the organization's hat-tip to life undersea, we take a look, this final June weekend, at some of the organization's captivating marine life snapshots. Here, the eyes of a queen conch ( Strombus gigas ) peek out from under its shell in La Parguera, Puerto Rico. PHOTOS: 30 Days of the Ocean 
 
 Earth's atmosphere and oceans as seen by the crew of the International Space Station. 
 
 Just 14 million years after the start of the solar system, Earth and the rest of the inner planets were inundated with water, setting back the clock for when life could have evolved, a new study shows. 
 
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 Analysis of meteorites from the mini-planet Vesta, located in the main asteroid belt between Jupiter and Mars, show hydrogen isotope ratios that match what has been found in ancient, unaltered meteorites known as carbonaceous chrondrites. 
 
 ANALYSIS: Extreme Earth Life Can Aid Search for Alien Lifeforms 
 
 Scientists already had a match between the chemical fingerprints of Earth’s hydrogen and the carbonaceous chrondites, but what they didn’t know is when the water would have been available to accrete into Earth. 
 
 The new analysis pushes water’s first appearance in Vesta and presumably on other rocky, planet-like bodies including Earth to just 14 million years after the start of the solar system. 
 
 “All the the planets could have gotten their water very early, which means the planets could have been habitable immediately after they formed. They weren’t just sitting there and looking at their watch, waiting for water to come,” Adam Sarafian, a geophysics doctorate student at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts, told Discovery News. 
 
 ANALYSIS: Has Earth Splattered Life All Over the Solar System? 
 
 Water is necessary for life as we know it. 
 
 Geologic activity on Earth has destroyed the earliest records of the planet’s formation, with its oldest rocks dating back to about 200 million years after the formation of the solar system some 4.6 billion years ago. 
 
 Analysis of rocks from the moon, retrieved during the 1969-1972 Apollo missions, show water was available in the inner solar system about 150 million years after the solar system’s formation. 
 
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 The Vesta meteorites, known as eukrites, date back to 14 million years after the start of the solar system. Sarafian and collegues measured a mineral called apatite in the samples to determine their water content. 
 
 “This is the oldest water that anyone has measured that has accreted to something that resembles a planet,” Sarafian said.
– A tourist in Florida has been sentenced to 15 days jail time after she says she thought she was simply collecting sea shells. Per the Miami Herald, Diana Fiscal-Gonzalez was caught after harvesting dozens of queen conchs from the coast of Key West. Fiscal-Gonzalez, who was visiting from Texas, was reportedly arrested July 13 by a Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission officer following a tip. Fiscal-Gonzalez had a reported 40 conch shells in a plastic container. She told authorities she didn't know it was illegal to collect the live creatures in the state of Florida. A judge sentenced her to jail, anyway, as well as to six months probation. Fiscal-Gonzalez will have to pay a $500 fine as well as $268 in court costs, according to USA Today. The conch has been a protected species in Florida since the 1970s, when over-harvesting led to a steep decline in their population in the region. In the Florida Keys, the conch is especially beloved. Floridians native to the stretch of islands refer to themselves as conchs and Key West High School's mascot is the endearingly named Fighting Conch. An FWC officer said most of the conchs Fiscal-Gonzalez took were still alive and returned to the water following her arrest.