Wednesday, February 27, 2013

Knobby

A couple of days ago, I posted a photo that included the edge of a limpet shell, without comment. Several of these tiny limpets, from pinhead size to about a quarter inch across, patrol the glass wall of the aquarium, scrubbing off the algae and hydroids that grow there. The shells are patterned in cream and brown, and look very smooth. Not so from close up, though; they're toothed.

Limpet sliding about, eating as he goes. The edging turns out to be tiny, more or less equally spaced protrusions with a knob on top.

Zooming 'way in.

And the limpet mouth, wide open. The eyes are at the base of each antenna. I wonder what they see, clamped down tight to their food source, mostly rocks.

Thanks for mentioning this, Sara.

1 comment:

I'm having to moderate all comments because Blogger seems to have a problem notifying me. Sorry about that. I will review them several times daily, though, until this issue is fixed.

Also, I have word verification on, because I found out that not only do I get spam without it, but it gets passed on to anyone commenting in that thread. Not cool!

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