The Urban Pantheist

Who ever suspected that this empty cartridge, from Polaroid SX-70 film, would provide habitat for so many animals. I can see three species here--a single blue mussel, a number of tiny barnacles, but most prevalently a whole mess of slipper shells Crepidula fornicata.

Despite their flattened, uncoiled shells, these animals are snails. They don't glide around all the time like most other snails, instead remaining firmly attached to a substrate like a rock or another mollusk's shell or a piece of obsolete technology. Youngsters can crawl slowly, but after about 2 years of age they settle in, living the quiet life of a coastal suspension feeder.

Perhaps you have noticed the racy scientific name. Often you will encounter this shell stacked up on others of its kind. Most snails have both male and female sex organs, but slipper shells have a different strategy. "If the individual settles alone, it becomes male briefly, passing rapidly on to a female, especially if another animal settles on it to initiate chain formation. Sex change can only occur to the bottom-most male in a stack and takes approximately 60 days, during which the penis regresses and the pouches and glands of the female duct develop. If a juvenile settles on an established stack it develops and may remain as a male for an extended period (up to 6 years), apparently maintained by pheromones released by females lower in the stack (Fretter & Graham, 1981 in MarLIN, 2003)."

On the second to last day of the vacation we decided to return to Fort Myers Beach. We had enjoyed it before, and it was close enough to the last place we wanted to visit (the Edison/Ford) house, and we were not disappointed by going back.

( Read more... )

Or since we're only on the one island is it a lesser antille?


One of the neighboring houses has the worst/best driveway I've ever seen.

( Read more... )

Three O'Clock on the 28th found us relaxing in the Casa Cubuy Restaurant after the day's activities.

( Read more... )

Here's a very small snail! I wish I knew experts in every field of biology, but probably even the most well-informed malacologist would say "dunno. subadult, terrestrial gastropod. shell coils on right hand side."



This is clearly some kind of orange-flowered perennial milkweed, planted by people who owned the house before us. When I google "orange milkweed" I get hits for Asclepias tuberosa also called "butterfly milkweed" (a little redundant, no?) which occurs in 3/4 of the US, but is on the endangered list in several New England states. Anyone actually know what it is?

Unidentified fly at Lost Pond. (Anyone?)

( more lost pond )

Much of the most beautiful and fascinating wildlife on Antigua is at the beach. This is a tiny mollusk with mother-of-pearl and a spot of copper blue.

( Read more... )

A hearty thanks to the pale and cranky staff down at the Texas Triffid Ranch for drawing my attention to the inner city snail project. (Seal-clubbing is apparently not controversial enough for this crowd, and anyone who hasn't already seen bonzai kittens should be spared the joke.) The snails pictured appear to be the brown garden snail Helix aspersa, and readers in the Bay area can decorate their own. Those of us in the Northeast can capture our resident English garden snails to make them into art. Of course, many of them are already quite beautiful, so painting them could be considered gilding the lily--or shall we say renovating the gastropod. We can check 'renovating the gastropod' on the urban dictionary later, to see if it means something dirty.

After todays cold rains, tropical air has come in ("tropical" meaning 57 degrees--10 degrees warmer than during the day) and it's very pleasant to be outside. We went out to walk the dogs and passed by a chirping snowy tree cricket. I found it with the flashlight and tried to photograph it, but didn't get much of it. After the dog walk, I came outside again, tried to get the snowy tree cricket again (I'm experiencing sudden anxiety about the 365 project--It seems impossible to get another 67 species, now that the leaves are mostly gone and cold and snow are coming) and failed. So I walked around the area a little bit, hoping to hear another one, or find something, anything, that I could photograph for the project. I didn't find anything new, but I had fun walking around and observing some animals that come out on warm dark nights, and trying a new photography technique.

( Read more... )

Photos by urbpan. Location: Ward's Pond, Olmsted Park, Boston.

Urban species #151: Pond snail [edited] Probably genus Physella

The ancestors of pond snails evolved lungs to survive out of the ocean, only to return to the water, and come up for air once an hour or so. They are found in fresh or brackish water, and are tolerant of pollution. In fact, they feed on algae, and some pollutants (sewage and fertilizer) promote algae growth, increasing the numbers of this snail. The many similar pond snails in the [edited] family Physidae grow quickly, and have shells that are so thin that they are (once cleaned of mud) nearly transparent. Under the evolutionary pressure of shell-crushing predators, such as pumpkinseeds and carp, populations of pond snails develop more rounded shells, which resist crushing.

Like most snails, pond snails are hermaphrodites. [edited] After mating, wherein one snail takes the female role and the other the male role, they attach their gelatinous egg masses to vegetation or debris in the water. Unless eaten, pond snails usually live about one year.


Egg mass at bottom.