Zen and the Art of Tidepooling
Tidepooling was an activity that made me as giddy as a kid in candy shoppe. There is little as pleasurable as exploring the minute natural saltwater aquaria and finding new creatures in each little pool. Being locked in coastline-less PA, I have not visited a tidepool in ages except when on vacation, where my last several coastal destinations have not been rocky :(
Dorid, over at the Radula, recently let me relive my tidepool giddiness by posting a primer on proper tidepooling. I'm very proud of her proper use of brittle star and sea star, as well her identification of "snail tubes" I'm not sure many non-invertebrate biologists would get that. Maybe polychaete tubes, but these tubes actually belong to a relative of the snails called Aplacophorans.
Thanks. It helps when your daughter is an invertebrate biologist and when you have a "thing" for nudibranchs. I'm highly motivated to get those things right :)
ReplyDeleteI really miss the southern CA coast and tide pooling myself. Here in New Mexico I'm even further away from salt water than you are :(
I think my daughter thinks I'm hopeless, because whenever something is going on in CA (her wedding and her graduations) the first thing I do is check the tide charts.
Maybe polychaete tubes, but these tubes actually belong to a relative of the snails called Aplacophorans.
ReplyDeleteNo, vermetids are gastropods. Aplacophorans can be worm-like, but they don't have shells.
Serpulorbis squamigerus to be exact - Class Gastropoda, Order Caenogastropoda, Suborder Neotaenioglossa, Infraorder Discopoda, Superfamiy Vermetoidea, Family Vermetidae to be even more exacting (at least according to ZipcodeZoo)
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