Oyster Blog
-
These are moon snail egg cases, not pieces of rubber that someone littered. Moon snails use sand and mucus to make the pliable cases. The eggs hang out in the case for a couple of months, then break free and...
-
These two crab were just, um, minding their own business when they were rudely flipped over and inspected. The crab at the bottom of this photo is male, the crab at top is female. Notice the difference in the shapes...
-
Everybody knows this guy! But who knew sand dollars have such hairy bottoms? This is what they look like BEFORE you see them for sale in jewelry-supply stores. Interesting fact: last spring researchers at the University of Washington discovered that...
-
The geoduck clam is the biggest clam in the world. Pictured here is a teensy two year old, but they can live to be 150 years old, or older. They frequently weigh more than 5 pounds. And yes, they're ridiculous....
-
Underside of a sea star, up close. The entrance to the mouth is covered by a mass of tube feet. The mouth opens up into the mobile cardiac stomach, which leads to a fixed stomach, which leads to the anus,...
-
Sea stars, the echinoderms formerly known as starfish, have neither brains nor blood. Their circulatory system uses filtered sea water, and their central nervous system is spread out among the rays, or legs, which scientists believe communicate sensory information to...
-
Here are two grainyhand hermits (Pagarus granosimanus) locked hand in hand. Or claw in shell. The larger male hermit crab, on the left, has his small left claw, which he normally uses for eating, firmly clamped down on the shell...
-
Hermit Crab in Moon Snail Shell Fragment This lovely creature is a Hairy Hermit (Pagurus hirsutiusculus)--a species easily identified by the white bands around its walking legs (which you can clearly see in the middle photo). It came in...
-
Here are some facts you probably didn't know about sea cucumbers: They breathe through their anus. They have a compound in their skin called catch collagen that allows them to liquefy or melt on command. They use this skill to escape...
-
Spider crab, shown above, are like Daddy Long Legs... they have a really scary outline, but relatively inefficient pinchers. They might make a mark, but they won't take off your finger. Dungeness crab, on the other hand, are super dangerous...
-
According to the Principia Cybernetica Project's definition of happiness, happy people are characterized by the belief that they are able to control their situation, whereas unhappy people tend to believe that they are a toy of fate. Yet another...
-
As mentioned in the last post, moon snails enjoy snacking on native butter clams. Tangent: humans also enjoy snacking on butter clams... they make amazing chowder, fritters, and clam strips. Grandpa Bart likes them sliced in half and deep...