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· 5TH OF NOVEMBER, THE YEAR 2006EVERYBODY LOVES SLUGS
I managed to rope some iSchool friends into a tidepooling jaunt today, along with Tony and Eri, and I think things went pretty well. I guess squidgy mollusks are slightly less intimidating than giant hairy spiders. Go figure. Duxbury Reef was beautiful as ever, and graced with sublime weather. Tons of people, but not out on the remote parts of the reef, where I skipped post haste. Tidepooling with me is probably not the most educational experience due to my single-minded fixation on the nudibranchial subset of marine squidgitude, but I think we saw a fair array of things: aggregating and giant green anemone, hermit crabs, ochre sea stars, mussels and goose barnacles, urchins, striped shore crabs. Nudibranchs included the ubiquitous Phidiana hiltoni, Doris montereyensis, and a surprisingly large number of Dirona picta, probably more than 15 individuals, by far the most common slug out there. All of the D. picta were the same salmon pink/orange, and most were between 2 and 5 cm. I haven’t read anything about them having a seasonal breeding period, but maybe this was it. Also observed P. hiltoni touching and recoiling from a giant green anemone, which was pretty interesting. Strangely, zero opalescents, Acanthodorids, or Dotos
There seemed to be tons of clams out on the reef today, exposing only their siphons, but many had their siphons extended way out in the open air, spouting water every now and then. Not sure if you can tell clam species by the valve alone, but there was definitely some variety in size, shape, and color. Never seen so many of them before.
Dirona picta
4 COMMENTS
the picture second from the bottom’s a clam? is that right or false? tell me more.
very cool pics. i like the first pic and how each head’s a link. very geek.
good stuff.
Yup, that’s a clam, or something like it. I believe what you’re seeing is the siphon that sticks out of the clam. You can sort of see two apertures on the end, surrounded by featery protrusions that sort of obscure them. I think those are the the eponymous valves of the bivalves.
where is the shell or did it have one?
The shell was burried somewhere between or under the rocks. Actually, there’s some group of clams in the area that actually bores into the rock itself, so maybe it was actually inside the rock.