Snails in sediment

During the cooler months of the year, most of the vacant lot is under an inch or two of water. I progress by stretching from one clump of dead grass to the next, mostly getting my feet wet when they squelch down into the mud.

In one of the pools, I noticed a patterned stone, with a handful of gravel nearby to sort of stand on. Up close, I saw that the pattern was formed by trails in the flocculated sediment.

The little circles where grass blades dip underwater mark the surface, about an inch above the stone.

I couldn't get close enough to get a good look, but once I checked my photos, I found the artist.

Do you see the snail?

Zooming in closer:

I've saturated the colours of the snail a bit, to make him more visible.

I don't know what species this is, nor how he survives in puddles that turn into hard, dry clay in the summer.

Other, shallower puddles had their share of snails, too, as well as many tiny, darting specks, too small and too fast to identify. I took photos, but all I got were the snails. Pretty ones, if extremely small.

Three snails here, and a few ostracods. (They look like tiny pink marbles. Can you find them?)

And here's a land-based snail. Or what's left of him, after a winter in the open.

Common garden grove snail, broken and bleached.

More about these ponds, in summer, with ostracods and other goodies, including, maybe, a relative of the trail-making snail. Here today, gone tomorrow.

Moustache!

And it's a Genghis Khan 'stache, worn with a goatee, to boot!

See:

Limpet eating algae in the aquarium.

Seriously, though, if you look closely, you can see the scraping "teeth" on the radula. Here's the photo, cropped and saturated:

The radula is like a conveyor belt with sharp cutting blades.

Limpets use a radula  to scrape algae from rocks.  The radula consists of evenly spaced horizontal rows of cusps or teeth on a supporting ribbon, each row comprising 2-6 cusps. Rows in some species number up to 200 or more.

From Limpets and Relatives, by Tom Carefoot, UBC.


Much like a tongue, the radula rolls outward, then is brought back with its load of algae, which then passes into the esophagus.

Cross-section of a limpet mouth. (Limpets and Relatives)

Sometimes, when the light is right, I can see tiny trails on the inside of the glass wall of the aquarium; limpet trails, where they've cleaned off the algae. They remind me of the snail trails in the algae on my old fence.

Snails are bigger, and hungrier; their trails are easy to see.

Snail road maps

Satellite view:

Sand Hills National Park, trails and campsite circles.

Highway with rest area

End of the road. The Pit. Or, more pleasantly, Ye Old Watering Hole.

We got down to the beach yesterday for the first time in it seems like forever. Fresh air, empty water, blue sky: it's turned me a bit silly.

Moment in the sun

This time of the year, the sun shines on my shady garden for almost an hour in the morning, glancing briefly at my bedroom window at 7:30, then slipping between the maple and the wall to highlight first a potted hellebore, the table holding a tuberous begonia, then the wall beyond with the snail trails in green algae. It moves quickly on; to the garden proper, warming each plant in turn, waking the bees that feed on the tiny maple flowers, making the bleeding hearts glow like stained glass, highlighting a rhododendron or two. The lawn is next, the evergreens beyond, and then the light moves up and over the treetops, leaving us again in the dark.

I went out this morning to watch the show.

Light, shadows, algae and snail trails on old wall. The green and red smokestack is all that remains of a boat that sunk in the Fraser, years ago.

The snail trails, with flash to erase the shadows.

On the rim of the birdbath, a caterpillar was hurrying along. Round and round and round and round he went. Occasionally he'd look to the right, come to the edge of the water, look left, over that long drop, then return to his bright road. Round and round again.

The low light gives him a wide, hairy shadow.

I love how the sun highlights his spiky hairs,

... and intensifies the colours.

Light catching a new fern, missing the pot beneath.

Satiny rhododendron bud.

Lilies of the valley.

When the sun moves away, reflected light softens the whites, which shows up their shapes. This tuberous begonia has a hint of pink.

I don't know what these are; the name tags went missing. In the background, red rhodos in the shade, and the sunlight moving up the cedars.

Once the last light left the tips of the trees, I turned back to the birdbath. The caterpillar was still there, still following the paved road to nowhere. I flicked him off, into a bowl of moss. The last I saw him, he was exploring the container, no longer in a straight line.