Stomach crawlers' six-packs
It's been raining quite heavily, and the molluscs are out, by which I mean the garden snails. I just plucked a small one off the wall by my door and dropped it in the fishpond. Mean of me, I know. Like Nature, I guess I'm "red in tooth and claw".
Funny to think that these guys are related to the cuttlefish, whose skeletons wash up on Sandy Beach and are popular with the owners of budgies and other caged parrots, which sharpen their beaks on them and probably gain a little calcium in their diets. Squids and octopodea are also relatives, and they're said to be the most intelligent of the molluscs. OK, octopuses, but never 'octopi' -- it's a Greek suffix, not Latin; same with 'platypodae', or platypuses, but not 'platypi'. Sorry, just a pet hate I've been needing to vent for a very long time. You know it is.
Another member of the big phylum of Mollusca is the Plough snail, which is a gastropod (that is, of the class Gastropoda).
Literally, 'gastropod' means something like 'stomach foot'. Many years ago, in one of our State parliaments, an honourable member was asked by the Speaker to explain what he had meant by describing another honourable member as a "gastropod", by which the first honourable member explained that he meant "an animal that crawls on its stomach".
At low tide yesterday I marvelled at the artwork of the Plough snails, which have the ten-dollar name of Polynices didymus. Why 'didymus', I don't know -- it means 'the twin', and is a surname commonly given to Thomas the Apostle, he who doubted that Jesus was dead and stuck his hand in his master's wounds for proof. When these gastropods push their way just beneath the surface of the glistening sand, they leave long, magnificent trails, like fingerpainting, or something like the trails on the bark of Scribbly gums. Some of the most beautiful trails are spirals, and some are just all over the place like a drunkard's walk.
What they're doing as slowly and steadily they plough the land and create masterpieces for deadshits to drive on, is hunting for other molluscs, as Plough snails are carnivorous. Remember the pipis we looked at yesterday? Pipis have to keep an eye out for Didymus, who wants to bore a hole in their shell using both an implement (radula) and some acid. Then he will chew his way into a feed of pink shellfish if he gets half a chance.
One day when I have a camera I'll be able to show you the work of these Jackson Pollacks of the sand, but in the meantime we'll have to make do with a photo of Plough snails that I've shamelessly purloined (in Fair Use) from the classic work, Australian Sea Shores (WJ Dakin, Angus and Robertson, 1987), with gratititude, if not actual permission.
What the photo shows next to the snails is four 'collars' (arranged by the photographer), which are commonly found on Sandy Beach. Often the collars form near-circles. The first time I saw one, I thought it was a bit off a plastic carrier from a beer six-pack, and I was pretty pissed off. They really do look like they come off six-packs. What, in fact, it was, was a nest of baby Plough snails. Each 'collar' is in fact thousands of little eggs and as many grains of sand, all glued together with a kind of jelly exuded by Mrs Plough snail.
Quite often on my flaneurs along the strand and through the bush, I see something that I think is a beautifully coloured creature, only to approach gingerly and find that it's a bit of litter left by some stomach-crawling yobbo (here's an example). Sometimes it's the other way round. My life is just full of ironies.
Funny to think that these guys are related to the cuttlefish, whose skeletons wash up on Sandy Beach and are popular with the owners of budgies and other caged parrots, which sharpen their beaks on them and probably gain a little calcium in their diets. Squids and octopodea are also relatives, and they're said to be the most intelligent of the molluscs. OK, octopuses, but never 'octopi' -- it's a Greek suffix, not Latin; same with 'platypodae', or platypuses, but not 'platypi'. Sorry, just a pet hate I've been needing to vent for a very long time. You know it is.
Another member of the big phylum of Mollusca is the Plough snail, which is a gastropod (that is, of the class Gastropoda).
Literally, 'gastropod' means something like 'stomach foot'. Many years ago, in one of our State parliaments, an honourable member was asked by the Speaker to explain what he had meant by describing another honourable member as a "gastropod", by which the first honourable member explained that he meant "an animal that crawls on its stomach".
At low tide yesterday I marvelled at the artwork of the Plough snails, which have the ten-dollar name of Polynices didymus. Why 'didymus', I don't know -- it means 'the twin', and is a surname commonly given to Thomas the Apostle, he who doubted that Jesus was dead and stuck his hand in his master's wounds for proof. When these gastropods push their way just beneath the surface of the glistening sand, they leave long, magnificent trails, like fingerpainting, or something like the trails on the bark of Scribbly gums. Some of the most beautiful trails are spirals, and some are just all over the place like a drunkard's walk.
What they're doing as slowly and steadily they plough the land and create masterpieces for deadshits to drive on, is hunting for other molluscs, as Plough snails are carnivorous. Remember the pipis we looked at yesterday? Pipis have to keep an eye out for Didymus, who wants to bore a hole in their shell using both an implement (radula) and some acid. Then he will chew his way into a feed of pink shellfish if he gets half a chance.
One day when I have a camera I'll be able to show you the work of these Jackson Pollacks of the sand, but in the meantime we'll have to make do with a photo of Plough snails that I've shamelessly purloined (in Fair Use) from the classic work, Australian Sea Shores (WJ Dakin, Angus and Robertson, 1987), with gratititude, if not actual permission.
What the photo shows next to the snails is four 'collars' (arranged by the photographer), which are commonly found on Sandy Beach. Often the collars form near-circles. The first time I saw one, I thought it was a bit off a plastic carrier from a beer six-pack, and I was pretty pissed off. They really do look like they come off six-packs. What, in fact, it was, was a nest of baby Plough snails. Each 'collar' is in fact thousands of little eggs and as many grains of sand, all glued together with a kind of jelly exuded by Mrs Plough snail.
Quite often on my flaneurs along the strand and through the bush, I see something that I think is a beautifully coloured creature, only to approach gingerly and find that it's a bit of litter left by some stomach-crawling yobbo (here's an example). Sometimes it's the other way round. My life is just full of ironies.
Pip Wilson posted item above at 12:39 PM | Permalink
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